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Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]
- Thread starter Baughn
- Start date
- Crossover
More than you ever wanted to think about training
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
You don't need to read this.
So let's see. The XP sim was essentially attempting to maximize training efficiency. Given a set of constraints -- training time, training time limits, and also some obvious things like "training time must be nonnegative" -- it should maximize the amount of progress made on any given day. Of course I wrote that at 2AM, so instead of doing the sensible thing I instead tried to reason out the Single Most Optimal Path... which does not exist. In the process I coded a lot of bugs. That was predictable, really.
So let's do this the sensible way: With good_lp. And MapLit.
Is this fun? Kinda yes. Would I do it again? Probably not.
The constraints above sum up to maximizing total progress achieved per day. You could use a different metric, though I don't know why you would work your way through this sort of thing. The pseudocode above is not at all something I can feed into the solver. In practice, we'll get something like this for the current training vote. Let's see if I get this right...
Voting result, and corresponding intent.
In general everything has to be of the form "Var[x] * constant + (..arbitrary number of other variables) <= VarY (or some constant)". This does mean that e.g. if you wanted to finish integrity first it could be prioritized by multiplying the effective training time by some arbitrarily large value in the 'maximize' chain. *1000, for example, gets maximum training time allocated in that direction... but still uses any remainder in the most efficient way possible.
This sort of thing is usually used to optimize the production chains of large companies, not the life schedule of a 13-year-old. Aren't we lucky?
Which seems fairly simple and straightforward.
One thing you'll immediately notice is that this only has two 'schedules' -- I skipped defining 'school' vs. 'evening'. It's not supposed to be fully accurate to the vote, by the way. That's mostly because it'd be twice as large if it was; it'll be in the final definition. Which is going to look more like this:
Feel free to point out bugs, but let's not start a derail on the subject of Amu's training goals. This schedule is going to frazzle her a lot and leave her extremely distracted, yes; we talked about that back when it got voted on.
= =
The time crunch you're expecting may fail to materialize. We shall see.
So let's see. The XP sim was essentially attempting to maximize training efficiency. Given a set of constraints -- training time, training time limits, and also some obvious things like "training time must be nonnegative" -- it should maximize the amount of progress made on any given day. Of course I wrote that at 2AM, so instead of doing the sensible thing I instead tried to reason out the Single Most Optimal Path... which does not exist. In the process I coded a lot of bugs. That was predictable, really.
So let's do this the sensible way: With good_lp. And MapLit.
Code:
Maximize sum(increments[*][*])
Subject to
# Apply time limits.
sum(training[*][schedule]) <= schedule_limit[schedule]
sum(training[skill][*]) <= skill_limit[skill]
# Maintain causality.
training[x][y] >= 0
# Overlap is a little harder to compute. It can only happen for things which are actually being trained simultaneously,
# so to model that as a linear program we'll need a variable that reflects the degree of overlap.
#
# Schedules are independent; they might be better thought of as 'time segments'.
#
# So, we'll define a new overlapped_training variable where the 'skill' subscript constitutes instead a unique
# combination of overlapped skills.
#
# To generate the 'training' variable from this overlapped_training will also contain definitions for all the
# non-overlapped training period, of course w/o any skill increment bonuses.
training[s][schedule] = sum(overlapped_training[s1..sN][schedule] / n)
# Maintain causality.
overlapped_training[x][y] >= 0
# Now that overlapped_training exists, we can generate skill increments from it.
increments[skill][schedule] = sum(overlapped_training[skill][schedule]) * OVERLAP
# Stop training when the goal is reached.
# This barely makes a difference, but is easy to add.
sum(increments[skill][*]) <= goal[skill]Is this fun? Kinda yes. Would I do it again? Probably not.
The constraints above sum up to maximizing total progress achieved per day. You could use a different metric, though I don't know why you would work your way through this sort of thing. The pseudocode above is not at all something I can feed into the solver. In practice, we'll get something like this for the current training vote. Let's see if I get this right...
Voting result, and corresponding intent.
In general everything has to be of the form "Var[x] * constant + (..arbitrary number of other variables) <= VarY (or some constant)". This does mean that e.g. if you wanted to finish integrity first it could be prioritized by multiplying the effective training time by some arbitrarily large value in the 'maximize' chain. *1000, for example, gets maximum training time allocated in that direction... but still uses any remainder in the most efficient way possible.
This sort of thing is usually used to optimize the production chains of large companies, not the life schedule of a 13-year-old. Aren't we lucky?
Code:
TT: Training time (hours per day)
TI: Increment (effective hours per day)
OT: Overlapped training
In linear programming terms these are all just independent variables, not tables.
You can think of it either way. Here's an example of how it'd work out, although not a fully coherent one;
I pulled this together from a mixture of too many posts.
Maximize TI[Dreamwalking] + TI[Illusion] + TI[Lore] + TI[Integrity]
Subject to
TT[DW][Daytime] + TT[Illusion][Daytime] + TT[Lore][Daytime] + TT[Integrity][Daytime] <= 2 # Schedule limit.
TT[DW][Sleep] + TT[Illusion][Sleep] + TT[Integrity][Sleep] <= 0.5 # Schedule limit. You can't reasonably train Lore while sleeping. With what you've recently experienced, you can train Integrity that way. I'm back-dating this for my own sanity.
TT[Lore][Sleep] = 0 # And so on for anything but DW/Integrity/Illusion.
TT[Integrity][Daytime] + TT[Integrity][Sleep] <= 2 # Safety limit / 'skill limit'.
TT[Illusion][Daytime] >= 0
(…and so on for all of them. Can't have negative values.)
# Bonuses for overlapped training:
TI[Illusion] = OT[Dreamwalking_Illusion] / 2 * 1.25 + OT[Illusion]
TI[Dreamwalking] = OT[Dreamwalking_Illusion] / 2 * 1.25 + OT[Dreamwalking_Integrity] / 2 * 1.25 + OT[Dreamwalking]
TI[Integrity] = OT[Dreamwalking_Integrity] / 2 * 1.25 + OT[Integrity]
# As usual none of these can be negative.
OT[Illusion] >= 0, OT[Illusion_Precognition] >= 0 and so on.
# TT is defined in terms of TI
TT[Illusion] = OT[Dreamwalking_Illusion] / 2 + OT[Illusion]
(...and so on)
# Finally, just..
TI[Illusion] <= Remaining Training Time Required
# And so on.Which seems fairly simple and straightforward.
One thing you'll immediately notice is that this only has two 'schedules' -- I skipped defining 'school' vs. 'evening'. It's not supposed to be fully accurate to the vote, by the way. That's mostly because it'd be twice as large if it was; it'll be in the final definition. Which is going to look more like this:
Code:
Baseline(Amu, {'Dreamwalking': 1, 'Illusion': 1, 'Integrity': 2, 'Lore': 1})
Schedule(Amu, {'School': 1, 'Afternoon': 2, 'Evening': 1, 'Sleep': 0.5})
SafetyLimit('Amu', {'Integrity': 2})
# Any time segment without limits will not generate any corresponding constraints.
ScheduleLimit(Amu, {'School': ['Illusion', 'Lore'], 'Sleep': ['Dreamwalking', 'Integrity']})
Overlap('Amu', ['Illusion', 'Dreamwalking'], 1.25)
Overlap('Amu', ['Dreamwalking', 'Integrity'], 1.25)
Overlap('Amu', ['Lore', 'Integrity'], 1.1)
Target('Dreamwalking', 2)
Target('Illusion', 2)
Target('Lore', 1.5)
Target('Integrity', 3)Feel free to point out bugs, but let's not start a derail on the subject of Amu's training goals. This schedule is going to frazzle her a lot and leave her extremely distracted, yes; we talked about that back when it got voted on.
= =
The time crunch you're expecting may fail to materialize. We shall see.
Last edited:
Chapter 2.12
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
"'Counting on it?'" Amu echoed dumbly, as if she couldn't quite wrap her head around the idea. "She wants to-? What… does actually happen?" She looked up at Shirogane, then stumbled to her feet. "When you kill your Shadow?"
Kana shrank back into herself, but didn't seem inclined to reply—though Amu could still hear her thoughts clearly enough to know that Kana had no desire to continue the conversation. Amu would have liked to oblige her, but this was something she needed to know. Her friend knew that, right? That she couldn't let this go?
Utau certainly did. Her best friend let her mind brush against Amu's, offering unspoken comfort. And, besides, letting her know she was looking out for Kana's other half. That was good. That let her focus.
"Nothing good," Shirogane replied. She sighed, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest, seemingly reluctant to continue—as if she'd rather do anything but say what came next. "It isn't common knowledge," she said, turning to look at Kana, rather than Amu. "So I'm quite curious why you know."
"Mom told me," Kana replied quietly, staring down at the floor. "When I was ten."
"I see," Shirogane said simply.
Turning back to Amu, she explained.
"I only saw it once," she said. "So you shouldn't take this as a given. It's possible your friend thinks it would work differently for her, and it's even possible she's right. However, that one time, I saw a boy reject his shadow—his 'true self', although that seems to be more about truthfulness than behaviour—insistently enough that it disappeared. After that..."
Shirogane trailed off slightly.
"After that?" Amu repeated dumbly. She dearly wished she could at least see Shirogane's emotions, but the older girl was still a black hole! A complete blank slate.
"After that he acted like a shell of himself. A parody, even by his low standards. He only lived a matter of months afterwards, but spent most of that in a psychiatric ward. Few people regretted his death. Even so…"
Amu could imagine what Shirogane had left unsaid all too easily, but Kana seemed flabbergasted.
"Huh?" Kana looked up at Shirogane, squinting at her suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes. "Really? Well, I guess? If you did nothing at all to stabilise their mind, you'd get apathy syndrome?" She blinked at Shirogane a few times before hesitantly continuing. "You saw that happen? ...I—I mean—my other half isn't planning to die. Killing your shadow and then doing nothing to fill the gaps would be an elaborate form of suicide. I mean..."
She trailed off, feeling lost and confused. She was talking about herself. Not about some faceless boy in a hospital bed. If Kana killed her Shadow—if the girl she was looking at died—then...?
"It'd change her," Kana whispered after a second or so, her eyes glinting suspiciously in the light. "Even if she gets it right. It's an insane risk. And I..."
'I don't want to die,' Kana finished mentally. 'I just want things to be normal again. I want to go home...'
"I can't fight," she said out loud. "I just can't."
Kana's thoughts were a bleak well of despair. Not because she physically couldn't fight—she could. She wouldn't, but she could. She'd become a monster, but she could. No, the thing that hurt her most of all was the certainty that even if she did, somehow, convince herself to hit back against Other Kana—even if she won, which Amu privately thought would be easy, with four of them against a single Kana...
That would be the end of everything.
In Kana's mind her 'other half' was an evil murderess with no moral compass beyond 'save Yui' and no qualms about killing whoever she needed to—even if it meant murdering complete strangers whose only crime was being in the way. She could no more fuse with that than she could take a bath in boiling oil and like it! It would be like Amu asking Utau to kill people for her own benefit.
So it didn't matter if Amu believed Kana could win—it would make no difference to the outcome! And Kana...
She couldn't ask them to stay. She loved Amu too much for that. That was too big a part of her core.
Amu recoiled from the thought like she'd been slapped in the face, floundering for a response as Kana's mind closed off in response to her shock—a small, quiet part of Amu noting numbly that at least Kana hadn't meant the last thought romantically. She hadn't, right? She hadn't. But Amu had somehow, accidentally, slotted in where Kana's family should be and-
"Hey," Amu blurted out before she could stop herself, feeling lost and helpless and wishing there was something more she could do besides stretch out a hand in hopes that-
"She's here," Shirogane told them sharply.
⁂
Maybe there had been a better way to do this.
Amu knew she wasn't the most proactive of girls. She'd gotten better, honest, swear to god. But that was 'better' from a baseline of 'spent months reacting to hare-brained scheme after hare-brained scheme from Easter, never so much as considering if she could try to get ahead of them.' And where had that gotten her?
Into an evil corporation's evil lair while a building-sized marshmallow man tried to squash her flat, was where. It hadn't been remotely as cute as the one from the movie. They'd won, thanks only to Utau, Ikuto, Tadase and Yaya being way more go-gettem than she had given them credit for. Maybe she'd been projecting. But the point remained, she hadn't noticed...
Any of this.
She'd spent a week playing games at home, despite knowing Kana might be in trouble. Hadn't really... thought about the sort of trouble, she supposed.
⁂
Now the walls were screaming.
The place they were in, the Abandoned Laboratory, was a cramped space that looked like it had once been a mad scientist's lair. It had been creepy from the start, what with the child-sized cages in the corner and the bloodstained dentist's chair in the middle of the room—but now it seemed actively alive, and that was really freaking Amu out. The entire room was heaving and pulsating like some kind of living thing, and she had no idea how or why or what, only that her footing was suddenly unsteady.
The room felt like a living thing, one in a great deal of pain. That was something she could understand and relate to—and it was an explanation for why the walls were abruptly radiating pain, yes? So distracting she was barely keeping on her feet?
No.
She took half a step backwards, raising her hands defensively in front of her as she looked around at the room; at the bloodstained chair and the tables with their empty syringes and the cages on the other side of the room that had-
Had not had children in them. Now they did, little silhouettes that were thankfully dark enough that Amu couldn't tell the details. Small shapes pressed up against the bars as if the wall behind them was burning them alive, wailing in distress at something beyond her comprehension. Their emotions were simple, insect-like, and in that they were easy enough to tune out—but the screams made her feel sick to her stomach. They also made it hard to hear. Shirogane shouted something-
'Get back'?
She was more than happy to oblige. The wall behind those 'children', the far side of the room when she'd first seen Kana, was abruptly boiling. There was a noise like an oven in the background, a low whoomph as air heated well beyond the point of safety. Not happenstance, nor fake. The actual wall glowed red-hot and began evaporating, vaporising in great slabs even as Amu took another step back.
-and the place smelled like burnt toast and warm socks and cotton candy, except worse.
Then something slammed into it from behind—something big enough to make the walls crack, break, and slough off in great chunks that crashed into the room.
Kana reacted instantly, leaping back with a quiet shriek as she scrambled to get away from it, pulling Amu with her by the hand. Shirogane stepped between them and the intruder, as if that would help.
Utau scrambled backwards, ending up next to Amu with Iru on her shoulder.
Amu thought she was feeling scared.
She could barely tell. The din, mental and otherwise, was too loud for her to make sense of anything from Utau past the loudest and most obvious of Utau's emotions—but 'fear' should have been at the top of that list. It was at the top of Amu's. She took another step backwards, in unison with Kana's. Their minds had stayed halfway meshed, despite—or simply ignoring—the nauseating feedback she was getting from everything around her.
But as the dust settled, Amu couldn't help but gape at the thing that had smashed into the room in stunned disbelief. She'd been expecting it to be Kana's other half—her 'real' half?—but this... this was something else entirely.
No.
That was Kana in the middle, wasn't it? That's what her eyes were saying. Kana, surrounded by a nauseating penumbra of colour-flecked shadow that rolled like fog through the still-glowing hole in the wall before spilling into the room like an avalanche of grey ink; a sea of tar that congealed on the ground, surrounding Kana's tiny form as it ate away at the room around it.
It touched one of the child-shadows in passing, and the thing's scream went up a few octaves before falling silent entirely as it evaporated like dry ice on a hot pan—one second there and the next not, torn into ribbons that burned themselves into nothingness, a few lonely threads joining Kana's aura before the latter surged inwards and devoured those too; leaving nothing behind but ash and an acrid, metallic taste in the air that made Amu's eyes water and her throat burn.
-with her eyes, that's what she saw. To every other sense she had, that wasn't Kana. That was an awful monster, a colossus of roiling, hungry and misfit scraps of void with too many limbs and too many mouths, held like iron by bonds that stretched in towards an unseen centre. It felt like Kana had flayed herself, torn out her insides and weaved them into something new and alien—something *wrong* that incorporated nightmares as though they were lego blocks, and yet-
And yet!
She recognised parts of it. Felt... 'parts'... of Kana in it—and those parts made no sense whatsoever. Kana's sense of humour was detached from her laughter, the former orchestrating a group of mental tentacles to wrestle for dominance with nothing to show for it, the latter giggling happily to itself as if everything were perfectly normal; she could feel Kana's loyalty and desire for food in its heart, but those were mixed in with a tangled, all-consuming love for someone Amu couldn't name.
Her friend had, somehow, found a way to generate appalling quantities of heat. But hadn't found a way to control it. The mental construct that surrounded Kana stretched across a third of the room, and inside it the desks and lab chairs were melting, but deeper inside it—if she ignored everything her other eyes were telling her—Kana's normal, grade-school-aged form stood with burns across her legs and forearms as if she'd rushed in without thinking twice about the heat.
Amu wanted to throw up. She didn't. Su reached inwards and suppressed the urge. Her most happy-go-lucky chara, most of the time; now she was more serious than Amu had ever felt her—though 'furious' was probably closer to Su's mood than 'serious'.
Amu couldn't blame her.
This wasn't just broken or scary or wrong—this wasn't Kana. This was-
Kana—Shadow Kana, the only real Kana remaining, whatever that meant—let out a hissing cry of what was definitely horror, her hands tightening on Amu's back as she pulled herself in closer, pressing against Amu for safety in an embrace Amu would have been only too happy to return, in normal circumstances.
Her clothes had changed. When was that?
When Utau's wings had grown?
Must have been habit.
She'd landed on an outfit far more protective than usual. A facsimile of a soccer uniform, even if there was enough leather on it to stop anything short of a rocket launcher. And with a collar that high, wasn't it more a coat than a uniform? It should have been hot—but Amu could barely feel it against her skin, felt mostly the aura that radiated off Kana's remnant in waves.
It took a few seconds for 'Kana' to speak, her... mouth? One of many mouths? Speaking without any movement from any part of the whole—its voice emanating from everywhere, as if...
"Hinamori-san?" she said, her voice shockingly normal. "Why are you here?"
⁂
Days before all this started—in an empty alleyway on the outskirts of Tokyo city, miles away from everything—a girl of about twelve with shoulder-length brown hair and a loose-fitting outfit sat down on a convenient bench, clutching her left shoulder as blood leaked through the clothes and stained her sleeve an ugly, rusty red. She'd tried to ignore it at first, but now...
Now it hurt too much to do that. And blood loss was no joke.
Nanami Akane waited patiently as the last of the red stains faded into nothingness, retreating beneath her skin and mending wounds that should have been lethal—should have left her lying dead in an alleyway for someone to find tomorrow, or never…
Had she been the her from last week, she might already be dead. Her eyes remained shut the entire time, lost in thought—she did not want to see the results of today's experiment. Did not want to think about what she'd done to herself.
"I told you, 'mom'," she whispered quietly after a second or two, once the pain had finally subsided. "I told you I can't."
But her mother hadn't listened to her then, and wouldn't listen to her now. Her mother was monomaniacally focused on saving Yui-neechan, which might have been fine—Kana wanted her sister back as well, after all—except her mother was doing so regardless of the cost to herself, to others, and really to Kana as well. Kana knew, in her heart of hearts, that Mom would never harm her. That was true, as far as it went. Her mother would never deliberately harm her, which didn't quite line up with 'never harming anyone' or even 'not destroying Kana's life'.
The latter because if you pulled your daughter out of school to help you indoctrinate children her age, whose parents couldn't be found? You were ruining her childhood. And the former because, well...
There'd been a lot of kids in Manticore for Kana to befriend. There were only five of them left.
Kana's stomach growled at her. She didn't acknowledge it, instead curling up on the bench and hugging herself tightly to try and suppress it; trying to ignore her hunger pangs in favour of deeper issues. Mom was gone, or might as well be. Naomi and Aoi had been captured, which was the exact opposite of what they'd been trying. Yuna was still missing, wherever she was—a Manticore cell somewhere—and Nanami Kana had run away from Manticore again rather than rescue them or go along with mother's plans.
It had seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time. If Mom was willing to do anything except hurt her, then Kana could escape by taking herself hostage. Simple! Logical!
Except now she felt very, very alone. At least she could be pretty sure mom wouldn't harm the two. Not if she was still hoping Kana would come back and help her... which she probably still was! Mom was, at heart, an optimist! But that wasn't making Kana feel any better at the moment, nor any less hungry.
"Mom," Kana murmured to the empty air, her eyes still screwed shut as she buried her head in her knees. "Why?"
Yui-chan was still at the safehouse. She really ought to check on her.
With a sigh Kana opened her eyes and got back to her feet, shivering slightly at the cool autumn breeze as she did so; its touch still not enough to quite erase the lingering heat from... whatever had happened to her when she'd hurt herself fighting that demon. Rather fitting. Amu-chan kills two demons, becomes a household name and gets the best treatment money can buy... and Nanami Akane tears a scarier monster apart, hurts herself, and nobody except the bad guys find out?
That hardly seemed fair.
"Is that what you wanted?" Kana asked the empty air, addressing her mother with a laugh that might have been on the verge of becoming a sob, its sound echoing through the empty alleyway. "To keep me safe? By taking away everything I care about? Did you think I wouldn't do what I did to Naomi to myself, if I had to?
Just like Mom had told her all those years ago when Yui-nee broke her leg. Mom had said-
W̶h̶a̵t̶ ̵h̵a̸d̶ ̵i̴t̸ ̵b̶e̸e̷n̵?̵
She couldn't remember. That wasn't good.
Kana pushed herself up off the park bench and limped homeward through the winding alleys and deserted streets. The safehouse she'd spent the last six months in wasn't actually that far away from this park, when you got down to it. Normally an hour's walk. But now...
Now every step was a battle against sheer exhaustion; against the weariness that threatened to knock her off her feet and send her crashing into the pavement. She'd healed all the obvious injuries, but there was still a bone-deep fatigue permeating her body. A growing irritability and absent-mindedness that Kana knew was a very bad sign indeed. Grafting something else's mind-parts to yourself was unsafe at the best of times. Doing it with a demon was...
...was maybe perfectly normal? Or the opposite.
The contradiction should have scared Kana more than it did, but by this point she was so far beyond worry that it seemed pointless to even try. Maybe mom had overestimated her. Or forgotten how she worked. She'd tried explaining it, but that was years ago.
Blocks passed by in a blur as Kana limped home, an itch growing in her mind. Until, eventually, it was less of an itch and more a throbbing pressure, something nagging at her from inside her head; a persistent demand that wouldn't leave her alone even for a second as she stumbled into another alleyway, heat radiating off her skin—the night air warming in response as she collapsed against a brick wall and slid downwards to the ground with a hiss; the back of her hand against her forehead as she panted quietly for air, the dizziness and nausea threatening to overwhelm her even through her attempts at suppressing it.
Yui-chan needed her.
But if she didn't get this infection under control, she wouldn't last a day! And-
"I need you," she whispered to herself in an empty alleyway in the dead of night. "Naomi. Yuna. Amu-chan." She could imagine all of them at the moment, each in their own way.
There was silence from the alleyway in response as a few distant sirens whizzed by in the background. It was very late at night; past midnight for sure, and long past the time when any sane person would be out on their own in these neighbourhoods. Let alone a twelve-year-old.
Small fires crackled into life around her as Kana's mental hold on the demonic fragments slipped—each one lighting up for a second or two before fading back into darkness, all save for a tiny flame in her outstretched palm which hissed quietly as it flickered and danced. The molten remnants of her cellphone oozed out of her shorts, through a hole burned into its side.
A phoenix. She'd killed a phoenix with her mind. And thought she could control it.
She'd been out of her mind.
The thoughts wouldn't stop coming as she sat there with her back to the wall, sweating silently in the empty alleyway as her breathing grew laboured. 'Breathe! You need oxygen!' At least part of her did. The regenerating phoenix? Not so much. She let herself sink into those memories as she hoped for the throbbing in her head to pass; for her thoughts to reintegrate themselves. She was more than the sum of her parts, but she'd damaged herself too much too quickly and-
'Quit messing about,' said the Yuna inside her head. 'If you want to survive, then don't stop fighting.'
'There's no room for people who can't pull their weight,' said Naomi.
But it hurt!
Aoi wouldn't say anything. She'd just reach out and do, as only Aoi could—and then the burning would be gone and Kana would be able to move again, push herself up off the ground and take another few steps down the alleyway. Amu would probably eat the damn thing. Or would have known better than to tear an aggressive demon into chunks of equally aggressive mind-stuff when she had better options, like big fast-moving rocks.
Kana was Kana, and so Kana did Kana things. Big, floppy comatose bird, Kana things.
And, uh. What was it again?
Mental. Kana things. Like searing the infection into little disintegrated pieces. Do unto it before it does unto her. It's a phoenix, Kana. It regenerates, that's all. Make it regenerate into you, instead of itself.
She surveyed the infection with a critical eye, not daring to feel anything.
It was all shades of black and white and grey, a twining mass of colourless fog that congealed in on itself in knots and tangles that reminded Kana uncomfortably of snarls in her hair—something that only got worse as time passed. It had invaded a lot of her mind already. It was hard to tell, from this perspective—but a lot of the stuff invading her thoughts and emotions had its roots in memory; had attached itself to Kana in the most literal sense and was steadily chewing away at everything that made her who she was, but hadn't done much to stop her fighting back. Dumb fire-chicken.
She hovered over it. Then she turned her thoughts into knives and, gritting her teeth against the pain, tore into it like a madwoman with a cheese grater and an egg salad sandwich, determined to root out every single last shred of-
An hour later it was almost gone, and Kana was slumped down in a puddle of her own vomit as she stared into empty air and laughed a hysterical little laugh at how very...
Her...
It was so...
And she was...
Dammit.
She'd recover.
Her breathing was rapid and unsteady as she forced herself back to her feet, kicking at the nearby wall with one leg as she scowled at the streetlights above and cursed at herself for ever accepting Naomi's plan. She'd recover, she thought. It'd take time. A month or two? Maybe more. But she'd get there—her brain was intact—and she'd get help, which would make it faster. Remind her who Kana was. Who she wanted to be. Or should she stay away? She was so, so glad Amu hadn't tried to reach her-
So long as Yui hadn't had an episode while she was gone-
It was no more than fifteen minutes later, as she stumbled in through the front door of the safehouse that served as her home base that she saw a wall of fog hiding the stairwell, a wall that had 'Yui' written all over it—and realised she'd decided to go find them. And that if the fogbank was still here-
That Yui had opened the door, then immediately failed to contain herself.
"Crap," she whispered to herself.
Kana hoped she hadn't gone very far.
⁂
Shadow-Kana's hands were tight on Amu's back. She'd given Amu the fastest explanation possible, after Kana had stumbled in embedded in a monster, and Amu couldn't blame her for not explaining this earlier—but that left them somewhat blind-sided. And besides-
'That's a phoenix?' she asked Shadow-Kana telepathically, staring at the conglomeration of mental fragments in dumbfounded amazement.
'It was,' she said. 'I think. I'm sure we tore it out. She must have-'
She cut herself off mid-sentence as Kana turned towards Shadow-Kana, her mien morphing into something akin to frustration as she glowered at the ordinary-looking girl who hid behind Amu. Shadow-Kana's grip on Amu tightened again; a surge of-
'-replicated it with shadow-stuff,' Shadow-Kana finished, sounding queasy. 'That's… insane.'
Of anger. Amu had seen enough of that to recognise it. But also something more complicated than simple anger at herself—and so Amu stayed still where she stood. Utau stepped closer, hiding Shadow-Kana entirely from sight.
A beat.
"Hello," said Shirogane to Kana. "I'm not certain I understand exactly what's going on, but-"
"Hinamori, get out of the way." Kana said irritably. "I've spent more than enough time on this already." Her attention shifted to Shirogane, giving her a cursory look, then back to Amu. "Did she tell you?"
"She told us what happened," Amu replied hesitantly, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. "Some of it, anyway."
"And... Hoshina-san, was it?" Kana said politely. "Could you move as well? I don't want to attack either of you."
Utau shook her head curtly.
"It's Nikaidou actually," she said, giving Kana a tight smile in return. "These days. And I'd rather not attack you either."
She didn't move, however. Kana waited a moment, then let out a noise halfway between a sigh and a growl before turning back to Amu and speaking again.
"I don't want to do this," she said bluntly. "But I will, if I have to. I won't say this again. Get. Out. Of. The way!"
"I don't think so," Shirogane interjected quietly. She stepped fully in front of them, arms crossed over her chest—an absolute wall of calmness; one that neither Utau or Amu felt up to matching. "You can't win here."
"A Blank?" said Kana after a moment's pause, cocking her head slightly to the side as she spoke; a gesture that seemed very unlike her to Amu. "Well, you do know how to find them, Hinamori-san. You must have worked hard for this one." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke; her tone becoming harsher and colder as she did so. "Acquiring an ally with immunity to mind-control was a good idea, if you were already expecting to fight me. But unfortunately..."
She didn't finish the sentence aloud.
Instead the heat surrounding Kana intensified to the point where the floor she was standing on started boiling; a feat lightyears beyond the teacup heating trick Amu had once figured out. A pillar of distorted air rose up around her, blurring her silhouette as everything within several metres started to evaporate. The bloodstained surgical chair transformed into a bubbling puddle that hissed quietly as it boiled away into nothingness.
Amu jerked herself backwards in response, pushing Shadow-Kana towards the door she'd come in through even as Shirogane stepped towards the heat, rather than away—and felt Kana's mind lock onto Amu's again, this time with vicious force; a sword that hacked towards her core without a single shred of remorse or hesitation.
It happened faster than Amu could react, a manifestation of psionic power that could truly be called an attack, rather than a power used for combat.
There were no twists of intent from a generalist root, no build-up of emotion. Kana looked at Amu and lashed out with telepathic daggers without a moment's preparation, the shadowy mass that surrounded her almost purring in satisfaction at having found an outlet. The blood-hungry attack screamed towards her, shredding what few probes Amu had put there while she struggled to put something, anything in its way-
Only to be shattered as it collided with Shirogane's intercepting hand, the power having about as much effect as the wind on a boulder.
Even that didn't stop her. Kana simply refocused on Shirogane, the heat ballooning to outlandish heights as she attempted to burn through her resistance with brute force. From where Amu was standing, it was like a furnace—and that was behind her! The rest of the room was now well and truly destroyed. The floors were warping beneath them, everything closer to Kana than Shirogane was nothing but puddles of bubbling goop that ate away at everything they touched—including the walls!
Except-
Shirogane was fully in motion now, racing towards Kana without any visible effort at all. There was something frightening about that, about how small she looked as she stood between Amu and Utau and-
And their attacker-
Except the heat was having no effect on her at all. Kana hammered at Shirogane with mental blows that did no more damage than a pebble dropped from a table might—powerful strikes that hit with enough force that Amu could feel them, but did no damage at all. Like hitting a statue. The heat seemed to be nothing more than a summer's day to the detective, even the more physical attack failing to slow her at all.
Through the wavering air, Amu saw Kana—now alarmed—pull a large knife out of nowhere and lash out at Shirogane with it—a last resort, except Shirogane caught it effortlessly as Kana tried to slice her throat open. And then they were moving too fast for Amu to follow. She saw Kana stab Shirogane again and again and again; saw Shirogane parry each blow without so much as pausing even for a moment. And then-
Kana dodged backwards, but hit a wall. Shirogane slapped the knife out of her hands before pinning her to the ground, holding Kana down with one arm even as the latter wriggled and writhed beneath her in an effort to free herself—the temperature plummeting almost as fast as it had risen. Bolts of lightning struck the penumbra around her, each strike shredding another layer of shadow-stuff and peeling it away from the monster that Kana had wrapped herself in. And Amu-
Amu could do nothing but watch from across the room as Shirogane bullied- thrashed Kana into submission, pinning her body and smashing down her mind with overwhelming force. Kana's tendrils reached out for Shirogane and died before they could touch her. Their core—the part that was actually Kana—didn't die, but seemed almost limp; frozen in place like an animal faced with a larger predator which wasn't sure what to do next.
She was a kid, not an adult! And-
Amu slid sideways into Utau, not sure if she should be shouting for Shirogane to stop, or just let this play out. If-
Before she could even think that through, it stopped. Kana slumped downwards onto the floor, letting out a groan. The monstrosity had mostly dissipated. Now there was just Kana again, a real Kana; still battered and bruised, but Kana nonetheless. And Shirogane-
"I told you," said Shirogane, shaking her head slowly back and forth in gentle disapproval. "That wasn't going to work." She had a small cut across her forearm and nothing else to show for Kana's efforts; a tiny black-red line on otherwise perfect skin. She lifted herself off Kana, helping her up in a manner that seemed utterly at odds with what Amu had just seen her do—as if this were just some kind of misguided kid who needed some scolding and a nap, not someone who had attacked them with intent to kill!
Amu wasn't sure what to say. Or do. She felt very cold all of a sudden. And wished Kana hadn't attacked them. That was probably childish. But Amu didn't care! It… it wasn't fair. She couldn't even keep up. She'd done nothing useful. If Shirogane hadn't been there, then Kana would have torn right through her. What would have happened, if those knives had struck home… she was only slowly starting to integrate it. It wouldn't have killed her, no. But that was just because her mind was, uh…
Was larger than Kana's, she supposed.
"Kana?" she whispered, a hand seeking out Shadow-Kana's behind her. She wanted comfort, and got it. A familiar set of fingers laced themselves together with hers. "Are you... okay?"
Kana—the real Kana—no, was that really true? Or was the beaten-down one the real one? The one that had called her 'Hinamori-san'?
Shadow-Kana nodded, then shook her head a second later.
"I'll live," she said bleakly.
Kana glared at them, Shirogane's hand holding her by the collar like a cat; looking furious and hurt and betrayed as she almost hung there, trembling with what was almost certainly exhaustion; her entire body flushed pink as she panted quietly for breath.
"Utau?" Amu tried.
Utau just nodded in response, apparently having decided Amu was checking if she was alive. The look in her eyes was as lost as Amu's, her hand squeezing Amu's a little too hard. And then Shirogane spoke again.
"This is completely backwards," she said bluntly. "Nanami Kana, was it?" Kana nodded curtly in response, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Good. I'd like to say you're under arrest..."
Kana laughed at that; a bitter laugh that sounded nothing like the person Amu knew. "Would you now?" she said sarcastically. "Is this where you try and make me see reason? I don't know how much the traitor there told you. Or who you are, though I imagine you aren't part of Manticore. They wouldn't dare to hire someone of your type. But if you think you can make me-"
"Hush," Shirogane said icily. "You're in shock. Don't make it worse." Her lips thinned into an annoyed line. She crouched, placing Kana down on an un-melted section of floor, and started checking for wounds. Kana bucked and thrashed in her grasp in response—but couldn't move an inch against Shirogane's strength. And then-
"Stop moving," Shirogane told Kana softly. A quiet order that held no ambiguity about it whatsoever. "Like I said. I'd like to say you're under arrest, but it's more complicated than that, isn't it? For now, let's make sure you live long enough that we can figure this all out."
Kana shuddered, then went limp.
"Good," Shirogane said idly. "Nikaidou-san? Hinamori-san? Do either of you have anything that would work for bandages? Your clothes will do, if necessary."
Amu swallowed nervously, then nodded. Shirogane had the situation under control, but Amu still felt sick to her stomach looking at Kana lying there on the floor, caged under Shirogane's knee like an animal pinned for dissection.
"Is she hurt?" Amu asked in a small voice. Shadow-Kana pressed in closer as she did so. "Or is-"
"I'll let you know in a moment," Shirogane said shortly, lifting Kana's shirt up over her head and examining her chest. Shirogane grimaced. Kana's entire front was heavily burned, blistered and angry and painful looking.
"Bad," said Utau in agreement, looking slightly green in the face.
"Might be fatal," Shirogane agreed. "We need to get her to a hospital. I don't see any blood, but the burns are worse than they look." She frowned, her fingers ghosting over Kana's midsection as if she were searching for something.
"Um," Amu said, raising her hand. "I could.. just heal them... I think?"
Shirogane froze. Then raised her head to look at Amu properly. "You think?"
Amu shrugged awkwardly. "I've done it before," she admitted. "At the school."
'Su, please help,' Amu thought at herself.
⁂
Kana had made mistakes in life.
Not a lot of them! She'd never been the kind of person who thought 'might as well commit every crime you can!'. More 'might as well figure out your limits and work from there.' As she laid there, her body held in place by a high-school(?) girl and her mind a kaleidoscope of confused and terrified emotions, she thought that this probably qualified as one of those mistakes.
And yet, despite being utterly defeated and exhausted to the bone, she wasn't dead or all that badly hurt or... actually, she didn't know what she would have expected a Blank to do with her; Mom had just told her to never under any circumstances get in the way of one, and lo and behold, getting in the way of one had ruined her. She'd known, deep down, that she wasn't a match for that sort of power... but hadn't had a choice except to try it.
And hadn't factored in the pink-haired weirdness magnet.
Then the Blank—'Shirogane' apparently—said her burns were potentially fatal, and...
Kana hadn't felt like laughing at that point. But she hadn't felt afraid either. 'Well, that sucks' had been more what she'd felt when it hit her; more than a little disgusted with herself for having rushed in without thinking first. Shutting off her sense of pain hadn't been a good idea either. She'd thought she'd be able to replicate the phoenix's regeneration, but...
Apparently not!
Her injuries hurt, when she let them.
And if they were really fatal then...
Well, then she'd get to see Yui-neechan sooner than expected, and probably have to take it up with God as to why he'd thought this was a fair deal. But that was it. No weeping and wailing or cursing at herself. She wasn't sure there was enough left of her for that.
Off there, in the distance, was her Shadow. The thing she'd wanted to break apart so she could fix that.
Forget 'fine'. Forget 'safe'. Yui-chan was missing! Except finding her had failed spectacularly and now everything was a mess and…
…and the Blank—Shirogane?—was leaning to the side so Hinamori Amu could kneel next to her, asking her how she felt in an annoyingly compassionate tone of voice, reaching out a hand towards the burns covering her chest.
Kana's mental powers weren't dead, exactly—but they might as well be, with a Blank physically touching her. It was all she could do just to hold herself together. Still, Hinamori somehow got a thought through anyway.
She considered, for a moment, if she should answer.
Might as well.
'-you -to yourself?'
'I was afraid,' she thought back tiredly, not having the energy left to lie. 'It wasn't my best idea.'
And if that wasn't an understatement. Kana was tired of taking stock of her wounds, but she did it anyway. Her entire body hurt, she was tired and hungry, and that wasn't considering what the churned-up bits of shadow-stuff and phoenix-stuff was doing to her mind. If she'd been in full form she could possibly have handled it, but then she wouldn't have done it either. She could admit that much, at least with her shadow in the same room to ping off of.
Not that she could tell if she was doing it.
'Do you regret it?' Hinamori asked.
What did it matter?
But there was the rub! Yes. Kana did regret it; regretted it so badly she thought she'd still be crying if she weren't so exhausted. She'd known from the beginning that Yui wouldn't thank her for this—that Yui-chan wanted Kana, not a Kana-shaped demon to protect her. And she'd known that breaking herself like this would hurt Yui as much as it hurt her. But she'd done it anyway! Because—because—because... because she didn't know what else to do! She'd been caught in a shadow fight, she knew what they were but she hated what she saw inside her other half, she had no reason to think anyone would come here—and Yui needed help right now, she told herself.
So... yes. She did regret it.
But...
But so what? There wasn't a way back. There wasn't anywhere else to go from here except down, and…
'I made mistakes,' Kana admitted at last, closing her eyes as she felt the beginnings of Hinamori's touch on her skin.
Oh for fuck's sake. Apparently Hinamori could also fix burns, on top of all her other tricks.
= = =
Would the real Nanami Kana please stand up.
No vote this time. I'm stopping here because chapter 2.12 became entirely too long. However, chapter 2.12.2 is already in its final editing pass and will be up in approximately one day.
Kana shrank back into herself, but didn't seem inclined to reply—though Amu could still hear her thoughts clearly enough to know that Kana had no desire to continue the conversation. Amu would have liked to oblige her, but this was something she needed to know. Her friend knew that, right? That she couldn't let this go?
Utau certainly did. Her best friend let her mind brush against Amu's, offering unspoken comfort. And, besides, letting her know she was looking out for Kana's other half. That was good. That let her focus.
"Nothing good," Shirogane replied. She sighed, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest, seemingly reluctant to continue—as if she'd rather do anything but say what came next. "It isn't common knowledge," she said, turning to look at Kana, rather than Amu. "So I'm quite curious why you know."
"Mom told me," Kana replied quietly, staring down at the floor. "When I was ten."
"I see," Shirogane said simply.
Turning back to Amu, she explained.
"I only saw it once," she said. "So you shouldn't take this as a given. It's possible your friend thinks it would work differently for her, and it's even possible she's right. However, that one time, I saw a boy reject his shadow—his 'true self', although that seems to be more about truthfulness than behaviour—insistently enough that it disappeared. After that..."
Shirogane trailed off slightly.
"After that?" Amu repeated dumbly. She dearly wished she could at least see Shirogane's emotions, but the older girl was still a black hole! A complete blank slate.
"After that he acted like a shell of himself. A parody, even by his low standards. He only lived a matter of months afterwards, but spent most of that in a psychiatric ward. Few people regretted his death. Even so…"
Amu could imagine what Shirogane had left unsaid all too easily, but Kana seemed flabbergasted.
"Huh?" Kana looked up at Shirogane, squinting at her suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes. "Really? Well, I guess? If you did nothing at all to stabilise their mind, you'd get apathy syndrome?" She blinked at Shirogane a few times before hesitantly continuing. "You saw that happen? ...I—I mean—my other half isn't planning to die. Killing your shadow and then doing nothing to fill the gaps would be an elaborate form of suicide. I mean..."
She trailed off, feeling lost and confused. She was talking about herself. Not about some faceless boy in a hospital bed. If Kana killed her Shadow—if the girl she was looking at died—then...?
"It'd change her," Kana whispered after a second or so, her eyes glinting suspiciously in the light. "Even if she gets it right. It's an insane risk. And I..."
'I don't want to die,' Kana finished mentally. 'I just want things to be normal again. I want to go home...'
"I can't fight," she said out loud. "I just can't."
Kana's thoughts were a bleak well of despair. Not because she physically couldn't fight—she could. She wouldn't, but she could. She'd become a monster, but she could. No, the thing that hurt her most of all was the certainty that even if she did, somehow, convince herself to hit back against Other Kana—even if she won, which Amu privately thought would be easy, with four of them against a single Kana...
That would be the end of everything.
In Kana's mind her 'other half' was an evil murderess with no moral compass beyond 'save Yui' and no qualms about killing whoever she needed to—even if it meant murdering complete strangers whose only crime was being in the way. She could no more fuse with that than she could take a bath in boiling oil and like it! It would be like Amu asking Utau to kill people for her own benefit.
So it didn't matter if Amu believed Kana could win—it would make no difference to the outcome! And Kana...
She couldn't ask them to stay. She loved Amu too much for that. That was too big a part of her core.
Amu recoiled from the thought like she'd been slapped in the face, floundering for a response as Kana's mind closed off in response to her shock—a small, quiet part of Amu noting numbly that at least Kana hadn't meant the last thought romantically. She hadn't, right? She hadn't. But Amu had somehow, accidentally, slotted in where Kana's family should be and-
"Hey," Amu blurted out before she could stop herself, feeling lost and helpless and wishing there was something more she could do besides stretch out a hand in hopes that-
"She's here," Shirogane told them sharply.
⁂
Maybe there had been a better way to do this.
Amu knew she wasn't the most proactive of girls. She'd gotten better, honest, swear to god. But that was 'better' from a baseline of 'spent months reacting to hare-brained scheme after hare-brained scheme from Easter, never so much as considering if she could try to get ahead of them.' And where had that gotten her?
Into an evil corporation's evil lair while a building-sized marshmallow man tried to squash her flat, was where. It hadn't been remotely as cute as the one from the movie. They'd won, thanks only to Utau, Ikuto, Tadase and Yaya being way more go-gettem than she had given them credit for. Maybe she'd been projecting. But the point remained, she hadn't noticed...
Any of this.
She'd spent a week playing games at home, despite knowing Kana might be in trouble. Hadn't really... thought about the sort of trouble, she supposed.
⁂
Now the walls were screaming.
The place they were in, the Abandoned Laboratory, was a cramped space that looked like it had once been a mad scientist's lair. It had been creepy from the start, what with the child-sized cages in the corner and the bloodstained dentist's chair in the middle of the room—but now it seemed actively alive, and that was really freaking Amu out. The entire room was heaving and pulsating like some kind of living thing, and she had no idea how or why or what, only that her footing was suddenly unsteady.
The room felt like a living thing, one in a great deal of pain. That was something she could understand and relate to—and it was an explanation for why the walls were abruptly radiating pain, yes? So distracting she was barely keeping on her feet?
No.
She took half a step backwards, raising her hands defensively in front of her as she looked around at the room; at the bloodstained chair and the tables with their empty syringes and the cages on the other side of the room that had-
Had not had children in them. Now they did, little silhouettes that were thankfully dark enough that Amu couldn't tell the details. Small shapes pressed up against the bars as if the wall behind them was burning them alive, wailing in distress at something beyond her comprehension. Their emotions were simple, insect-like, and in that they were easy enough to tune out—but the screams made her feel sick to her stomach. They also made it hard to hear. Shirogane shouted something-
'Get back'?
She was more than happy to oblige. The wall behind those 'children', the far side of the room when she'd first seen Kana, was abruptly boiling. There was a noise like an oven in the background, a low whoomph as air heated well beyond the point of safety. Not happenstance, nor fake. The actual wall glowed red-hot and began evaporating, vaporising in great slabs even as Amu took another step back.
-and the place smelled like burnt toast and warm socks and cotton candy, except worse.
Then something slammed into it from behind—something big enough to make the walls crack, break, and slough off in great chunks that crashed into the room.
Kana reacted instantly, leaping back with a quiet shriek as she scrambled to get away from it, pulling Amu with her by the hand. Shirogane stepped between them and the intruder, as if that would help.
Utau scrambled backwards, ending up next to Amu with Iru on her shoulder.
Amu thought she was feeling scared.
She could barely tell. The din, mental and otherwise, was too loud for her to make sense of anything from Utau past the loudest and most obvious of Utau's emotions—but 'fear' should have been at the top of that list. It was at the top of Amu's. She took another step backwards, in unison with Kana's. Their minds had stayed halfway meshed, despite—or simply ignoring—the nauseating feedback she was getting from everything around her.
But as the dust settled, Amu couldn't help but gape at the thing that had smashed into the room in stunned disbelief. She'd been expecting it to be Kana's other half—her 'real' half?—but this... this was something else entirely.
No.
That was Kana in the middle, wasn't it? That's what her eyes were saying. Kana, surrounded by a nauseating penumbra of colour-flecked shadow that rolled like fog through the still-glowing hole in the wall before spilling into the room like an avalanche of grey ink; a sea of tar that congealed on the ground, surrounding Kana's tiny form as it ate away at the room around it.
It touched one of the child-shadows in passing, and the thing's scream went up a few octaves before falling silent entirely as it evaporated like dry ice on a hot pan—one second there and the next not, torn into ribbons that burned themselves into nothingness, a few lonely threads joining Kana's aura before the latter surged inwards and devoured those too; leaving nothing behind but ash and an acrid, metallic taste in the air that made Amu's eyes water and her throat burn.
-with her eyes, that's what she saw. To every other sense she had, that wasn't Kana. That was an awful monster, a colossus of roiling, hungry and misfit scraps of void with too many limbs and too many mouths, held like iron by bonds that stretched in towards an unseen centre. It felt like Kana had flayed herself, torn out her insides and weaved them into something new and alien—something *wrong* that incorporated nightmares as though they were lego blocks, and yet-
And yet!
She recognised parts of it. Felt... 'parts'... of Kana in it—and those parts made no sense whatsoever. Kana's sense of humour was detached from her laughter, the former orchestrating a group of mental tentacles to wrestle for dominance with nothing to show for it, the latter giggling happily to itself as if everything were perfectly normal; she could feel Kana's loyalty and desire for food in its heart, but those were mixed in with a tangled, all-consuming love for someone Amu couldn't name.
Her friend had, somehow, found a way to generate appalling quantities of heat. But hadn't found a way to control it. The mental construct that surrounded Kana stretched across a third of the room, and inside it the desks and lab chairs were melting, but deeper inside it—if she ignored everything her other eyes were telling her—Kana's normal, grade-school-aged form stood with burns across her legs and forearms as if she'd rushed in without thinking twice about the heat.
Amu wanted to throw up. She didn't. Su reached inwards and suppressed the urge. Her most happy-go-lucky chara, most of the time; now she was more serious than Amu had ever felt her—though 'furious' was probably closer to Su's mood than 'serious'.
Amu couldn't blame her.
This wasn't just broken or scary or wrong—this wasn't Kana. This was-
Kana—Shadow Kana, the only real Kana remaining, whatever that meant—let out a hissing cry of what was definitely horror, her hands tightening on Amu's back as she pulled herself in closer, pressing against Amu for safety in an embrace Amu would have been only too happy to return, in normal circumstances.
Her clothes had changed. When was that?
When Utau's wings had grown?
Must have been habit.
She'd landed on an outfit far more protective than usual. A facsimile of a soccer uniform, even if there was enough leather on it to stop anything short of a rocket launcher. And with a collar that high, wasn't it more a coat than a uniform? It should have been hot—but Amu could barely feel it against her skin, felt mostly the aura that radiated off Kana's remnant in waves.
It took a few seconds for 'Kana' to speak, her... mouth? One of many mouths? Speaking without any movement from any part of the whole—its voice emanating from everywhere, as if...
"Hinamori-san?" she said, her voice shockingly normal. "Why are you here?"
⁂
Days before all this started—in an empty alleyway on the outskirts of Tokyo city, miles away from everything—a girl of about twelve with shoulder-length brown hair and a loose-fitting outfit sat down on a convenient bench, clutching her left shoulder as blood leaked through the clothes and stained her sleeve an ugly, rusty red. She'd tried to ignore it at first, but now...
Now it hurt too much to do that. And blood loss was no joke.
Nanami Akane waited patiently as the last of the red stains faded into nothingness, retreating beneath her skin and mending wounds that should have been lethal—should have left her lying dead in an alleyway for someone to find tomorrow, or never…
Had she been the her from last week, she might already be dead. Her eyes remained shut the entire time, lost in thought—she did not want to see the results of today's experiment. Did not want to think about what she'd done to herself.
"I told you, 'mom'," she whispered quietly after a second or two, once the pain had finally subsided. "I told you I can't."
But her mother hadn't listened to her then, and wouldn't listen to her now. Her mother was monomaniacally focused on saving Yui-neechan, which might have been fine—Kana wanted her sister back as well, after all—except her mother was doing so regardless of the cost to herself, to others, and really to Kana as well. Kana knew, in her heart of hearts, that Mom would never harm her. That was true, as far as it went. Her mother would never deliberately harm her, which didn't quite line up with 'never harming anyone' or even 'not destroying Kana's life'.
The latter because if you pulled your daughter out of school to help you indoctrinate children her age, whose parents couldn't be found? You were ruining her childhood. And the former because, well...
There'd been a lot of kids in Manticore for Kana to befriend. There were only five of them left.
Kana's stomach growled at her. She didn't acknowledge it, instead curling up on the bench and hugging herself tightly to try and suppress it; trying to ignore her hunger pangs in favour of deeper issues. Mom was gone, or might as well be. Naomi and Aoi had been captured, which was the exact opposite of what they'd been trying. Yuna was still missing, wherever she was—a Manticore cell somewhere—and Nanami Kana had run away from Manticore again rather than rescue them or go along with mother's plans.
It had seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time. If Mom was willing to do anything except hurt her, then Kana could escape by taking herself hostage. Simple! Logical!
Except now she felt very, very alone. At least she could be pretty sure mom wouldn't harm the two. Not if she was still hoping Kana would come back and help her... which she probably still was! Mom was, at heart, an optimist! But that wasn't making Kana feel any better at the moment, nor any less hungry.
"Mom," Kana murmured to the empty air, her eyes still screwed shut as she buried her head in her knees. "Why?"
Yui-chan was still at the safehouse. She really ought to check on her.
With a sigh Kana opened her eyes and got back to her feet, shivering slightly at the cool autumn breeze as she did so; its touch still not enough to quite erase the lingering heat from... whatever had happened to her when she'd hurt herself fighting that demon. Rather fitting. Amu-chan kills two demons, becomes a household name and gets the best treatment money can buy... and Nanami Akane tears a scarier monster apart, hurts herself, and nobody except the bad guys find out?
That hardly seemed fair.
"Is that what you wanted?" Kana asked the empty air, addressing her mother with a laugh that might have been on the verge of becoming a sob, its sound echoing through the empty alleyway. "To keep me safe? By taking away everything I care about? Did you think I wouldn't do what I did to Naomi to myself, if I had to?
Just like Mom had told her all those years ago when Yui-nee broke her leg. Mom had said-
W̶h̶a̵t̶ ̵h̵a̸d̶ ̵i̴t̸ ̵b̶e̸e̷n̵?̵
She couldn't remember. That wasn't good.
Kana pushed herself up off the park bench and limped homeward through the winding alleys and deserted streets. The safehouse she'd spent the last six months in wasn't actually that far away from this park, when you got down to it. Normally an hour's walk. But now...
Now every step was a battle against sheer exhaustion; against the weariness that threatened to knock her off her feet and send her crashing into the pavement. She'd healed all the obvious injuries, but there was still a bone-deep fatigue permeating her body. A growing irritability and absent-mindedness that Kana knew was a very bad sign indeed. Grafting something else's mind-parts to yourself was unsafe at the best of times. Doing it with a demon was...
...was maybe perfectly normal? Or the opposite.
The contradiction should have scared Kana more than it did, but by this point she was so far beyond worry that it seemed pointless to even try. Maybe mom had overestimated her. Or forgotten how she worked. She'd tried explaining it, but that was years ago.
Blocks passed by in a blur as Kana limped home, an itch growing in her mind. Until, eventually, it was less of an itch and more a throbbing pressure, something nagging at her from inside her head; a persistent demand that wouldn't leave her alone even for a second as she stumbled into another alleyway, heat radiating off her skin—the night air warming in response as she collapsed against a brick wall and slid downwards to the ground with a hiss; the back of her hand against her forehead as she panted quietly for air, the dizziness and nausea threatening to overwhelm her even through her attempts at suppressing it.
Yui-chan needed her.
But if she didn't get this infection under control, she wouldn't last a day! And-
"I need you," she whispered to herself in an empty alleyway in the dead of night. "Naomi. Yuna. Amu-chan." She could imagine all of them at the moment, each in their own way.
There was silence from the alleyway in response as a few distant sirens whizzed by in the background. It was very late at night; past midnight for sure, and long past the time when any sane person would be out on their own in these neighbourhoods. Let alone a twelve-year-old.
Small fires crackled into life around her as Kana's mental hold on the demonic fragments slipped—each one lighting up for a second or two before fading back into darkness, all save for a tiny flame in her outstretched palm which hissed quietly as it flickered and danced. The molten remnants of her cellphone oozed out of her shorts, through a hole burned into its side.
A phoenix. She'd killed a phoenix with her mind. And thought she could control it.
She'd been out of her mind.
The thoughts wouldn't stop coming as she sat there with her back to the wall, sweating silently in the empty alleyway as her breathing grew laboured. 'Breathe! You need oxygen!' At least part of her did. The regenerating phoenix? Not so much. She let herself sink into those memories as she hoped for the throbbing in her head to pass; for her thoughts to reintegrate themselves. She was more than the sum of her parts, but she'd damaged herself too much too quickly and-
'Quit messing about,' said the Yuna inside her head. 'If you want to survive, then don't stop fighting.'
'There's no room for people who can't pull their weight,' said Naomi.
But it hurt!
Aoi wouldn't say anything. She'd just reach out and do, as only Aoi could—and then the burning would be gone and Kana would be able to move again, push herself up off the ground and take another few steps down the alleyway. Amu would probably eat the damn thing. Or would have known better than to tear an aggressive demon into chunks of equally aggressive mind-stuff when she had better options, like big fast-moving rocks.
Kana was Kana, and so Kana did Kana things. Big, floppy comatose bird, Kana things.
And, uh. What was it again?
Mental. Kana things. Like searing the infection into little disintegrated pieces. Do unto it before it does unto her. It's a phoenix, Kana. It regenerates, that's all. Make it regenerate into you, instead of itself.
She surveyed the infection with a critical eye, not daring to feel anything.
It was all shades of black and white and grey, a twining mass of colourless fog that congealed in on itself in knots and tangles that reminded Kana uncomfortably of snarls in her hair—something that only got worse as time passed. It had invaded a lot of her mind already. It was hard to tell, from this perspective—but a lot of the stuff invading her thoughts and emotions had its roots in memory; had attached itself to Kana in the most literal sense and was steadily chewing away at everything that made her who she was, but hadn't done much to stop her fighting back. Dumb fire-chicken.
She hovered over it. Then she turned her thoughts into knives and, gritting her teeth against the pain, tore into it like a madwoman with a cheese grater and an egg salad sandwich, determined to root out every single last shred of-
An hour later it was almost gone, and Kana was slumped down in a puddle of her own vomit as she stared into empty air and laughed a hysterical little laugh at how very...
Her...
It was so...
And she was...
Dammit.
She'd recover.
Her breathing was rapid and unsteady as she forced herself back to her feet, kicking at the nearby wall with one leg as she scowled at the streetlights above and cursed at herself for ever accepting Naomi's plan. She'd recover, she thought. It'd take time. A month or two? Maybe more. But she'd get there—her brain was intact—and she'd get help, which would make it faster. Remind her who Kana was. Who she wanted to be. Or should she stay away? She was so, so glad Amu hadn't tried to reach her-
So long as Yui hadn't had an episode while she was gone-
It was no more than fifteen minutes later, as she stumbled in through the front door of the safehouse that served as her home base that she saw a wall of fog hiding the stairwell, a wall that had 'Yui' written all over it—and realised she'd decided to go find them. And that if the fogbank was still here-
That Yui had opened the door, then immediately failed to contain herself.
"Crap," she whispered to herself.
Kana hoped she hadn't gone very far.
⁂
Shadow-Kana's hands were tight on Amu's back. She'd given Amu the fastest explanation possible, after Kana had stumbled in embedded in a monster, and Amu couldn't blame her for not explaining this earlier—but that left them somewhat blind-sided. And besides-
'That's a phoenix?' she asked Shadow-Kana telepathically, staring at the conglomeration of mental fragments in dumbfounded amazement.
'It was,' she said. 'I think. I'm sure we tore it out. She must have-'
She cut herself off mid-sentence as Kana turned towards Shadow-Kana, her mien morphing into something akin to frustration as she glowered at the ordinary-looking girl who hid behind Amu. Shadow-Kana's grip on Amu tightened again; a surge of-
'-replicated it with shadow-stuff,' Shadow-Kana finished, sounding queasy. 'That's… insane.'
Of anger. Amu had seen enough of that to recognise it. But also something more complicated than simple anger at herself—and so Amu stayed still where she stood. Utau stepped closer, hiding Shadow-Kana entirely from sight.
A beat.
"Hello," said Shirogane to Kana. "I'm not certain I understand exactly what's going on, but-"
"Hinamori, get out of the way." Kana said irritably. "I've spent more than enough time on this already." Her attention shifted to Shirogane, giving her a cursory look, then back to Amu. "Did she tell you?"
"She told us what happened," Amu replied hesitantly, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. "Some of it, anyway."
"And... Hoshina-san, was it?" Kana said politely. "Could you move as well? I don't want to attack either of you."
Utau shook her head curtly.
"It's Nikaidou actually," she said, giving Kana a tight smile in return. "These days. And I'd rather not attack you either."
She didn't move, however. Kana waited a moment, then let out a noise halfway between a sigh and a growl before turning back to Amu and speaking again.
"I don't want to do this," she said bluntly. "But I will, if I have to. I won't say this again. Get. Out. Of. The way!"
"I don't think so," Shirogane interjected quietly. She stepped fully in front of them, arms crossed over her chest—an absolute wall of calmness; one that neither Utau or Amu felt up to matching. "You can't win here."
"A Blank?" said Kana after a moment's pause, cocking her head slightly to the side as she spoke; a gesture that seemed very unlike her to Amu. "Well, you do know how to find them, Hinamori-san. You must have worked hard for this one." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke; her tone becoming harsher and colder as she did so. "Acquiring an ally with immunity to mind-control was a good idea, if you were already expecting to fight me. But unfortunately..."
She didn't finish the sentence aloud.
Instead the heat surrounding Kana intensified to the point where the floor she was standing on started boiling; a feat lightyears beyond the teacup heating trick Amu had once figured out. A pillar of distorted air rose up around her, blurring her silhouette as everything within several metres started to evaporate. The bloodstained surgical chair transformed into a bubbling puddle that hissed quietly as it boiled away into nothingness.
Amu jerked herself backwards in response, pushing Shadow-Kana towards the door she'd come in through even as Shirogane stepped towards the heat, rather than away—and felt Kana's mind lock onto Amu's again, this time with vicious force; a sword that hacked towards her core without a single shred of remorse or hesitation.
It happened faster than Amu could react, a manifestation of psionic power that could truly be called an attack, rather than a power used for combat.
There were no twists of intent from a generalist root, no build-up of emotion. Kana looked at Amu and lashed out with telepathic daggers without a moment's preparation, the shadowy mass that surrounded her almost purring in satisfaction at having found an outlet. The blood-hungry attack screamed towards her, shredding what few probes Amu had put there while she struggled to put something, anything in its way-
Only to be shattered as it collided with Shirogane's intercepting hand, the power having about as much effect as the wind on a boulder.
Even that didn't stop her. Kana simply refocused on Shirogane, the heat ballooning to outlandish heights as she attempted to burn through her resistance with brute force. From where Amu was standing, it was like a furnace—and that was behind her! The rest of the room was now well and truly destroyed. The floors were warping beneath them, everything closer to Kana than Shirogane was nothing but puddles of bubbling goop that ate away at everything they touched—including the walls!
Except-
Shirogane was fully in motion now, racing towards Kana without any visible effort at all. There was something frightening about that, about how small she looked as she stood between Amu and Utau and-
And their attacker-
Except the heat was having no effect on her at all. Kana hammered at Shirogane with mental blows that did no more damage than a pebble dropped from a table might—powerful strikes that hit with enough force that Amu could feel them, but did no damage at all. Like hitting a statue. The heat seemed to be nothing more than a summer's day to the detective, even the more physical attack failing to slow her at all.
Through the wavering air, Amu saw Kana—now alarmed—pull a large knife out of nowhere and lash out at Shirogane with it—a last resort, except Shirogane caught it effortlessly as Kana tried to slice her throat open. And then they were moving too fast for Amu to follow. She saw Kana stab Shirogane again and again and again; saw Shirogane parry each blow without so much as pausing even for a moment. And then-
Kana dodged backwards, but hit a wall. Shirogane slapped the knife out of her hands before pinning her to the ground, holding Kana down with one arm even as the latter wriggled and writhed beneath her in an effort to free herself—the temperature plummeting almost as fast as it had risen. Bolts of lightning struck the penumbra around her, each strike shredding another layer of shadow-stuff and peeling it away from the monster that Kana had wrapped herself in. And Amu-
Amu could do nothing but watch from across the room as Shirogane bullied- thrashed Kana into submission, pinning her body and smashing down her mind with overwhelming force. Kana's tendrils reached out for Shirogane and died before they could touch her. Their core—the part that was actually Kana—didn't die, but seemed almost limp; frozen in place like an animal faced with a larger predator which wasn't sure what to do next.
She was a kid, not an adult! And-
Amu slid sideways into Utau, not sure if she should be shouting for Shirogane to stop, or just let this play out. If-
Before she could even think that through, it stopped. Kana slumped downwards onto the floor, letting out a groan. The monstrosity had mostly dissipated. Now there was just Kana again, a real Kana; still battered and bruised, but Kana nonetheless. And Shirogane-
"I told you," said Shirogane, shaking her head slowly back and forth in gentle disapproval. "That wasn't going to work." She had a small cut across her forearm and nothing else to show for Kana's efforts; a tiny black-red line on otherwise perfect skin. She lifted herself off Kana, helping her up in a manner that seemed utterly at odds with what Amu had just seen her do—as if this were just some kind of misguided kid who needed some scolding and a nap, not someone who had attacked them with intent to kill!
Amu wasn't sure what to say. Or do. She felt very cold all of a sudden. And wished Kana hadn't attacked them. That was probably childish. But Amu didn't care! It… it wasn't fair. She couldn't even keep up. She'd done nothing useful. If Shirogane hadn't been there, then Kana would have torn right through her. What would have happened, if those knives had struck home… she was only slowly starting to integrate it. It wouldn't have killed her, no. But that was just because her mind was, uh…
Was larger than Kana's, she supposed.
"Kana?" she whispered, a hand seeking out Shadow-Kana's behind her. She wanted comfort, and got it. A familiar set of fingers laced themselves together with hers. "Are you... okay?"
Kana—the real Kana—no, was that really true? Or was the beaten-down one the real one? The one that had called her 'Hinamori-san'?
Shadow-Kana nodded, then shook her head a second later.
"I'll live," she said bleakly.
Kana glared at them, Shirogane's hand holding her by the collar like a cat; looking furious and hurt and betrayed as she almost hung there, trembling with what was almost certainly exhaustion; her entire body flushed pink as she panted quietly for breath.
"Utau?" Amu tried.
Utau just nodded in response, apparently having decided Amu was checking if she was alive. The look in her eyes was as lost as Amu's, her hand squeezing Amu's a little too hard. And then Shirogane spoke again.
"This is completely backwards," she said bluntly. "Nanami Kana, was it?" Kana nodded curtly in response, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Good. I'd like to say you're under arrest..."
Kana laughed at that; a bitter laugh that sounded nothing like the person Amu knew. "Would you now?" she said sarcastically. "Is this where you try and make me see reason? I don't know how much the traitor there told you. Or who you are, though I imagine you aren't part of Manticore. They wouldn't dare to hire someone of your type. But if you think you can make me-"
"Hush," Shirogane said icily. "You're in shock. Don't make it worse." Her lips thinned into an annoyed line. She crouched, placing Kana down on an un-melted section of floor, and started checking for wounds. Kana bucked and thrashed in her grasp in response—but couldn't move an inch against Shirogane's strength. And then-
"Stop moving," Shirogane told Kana softly. A quiet order that held no ambiguity about it whatsoever. "Like I said. I'd like to say you're under arrest, but it's more complicated than that, isn't it? For now, let's make sure you live long enough that we can figure this all out."
Kana shuddered, then went limp.
"Good," Shirogane said idly. "Nikaidou-san? Hinamori-san? Do either of you have anything that would work for bandages? Your clothes will do, if necessary."
Amu swallowed nervously, then nodded. Shirogane had the situation under control, but Amu still felt sick to her stomach looking at Kana lying there on the floor, caged under Shirogane's knee like an animal pinned for dissection.
"Is she hurt?" Amu asked in a small voice. Shadow-Kana pressed in closer as she did so. "Or is-"
"I'll let you know in a moment," Shirogane said shortly, lifting Kana's shirt up over her head and examining her chest. Shirogane grimaced. Kana's entire front was heavily burned, blistered and angry and painful looking.
"Bad," said Utau in agreement, looking slightly green in the face.
"Might be fatal," Shirogane agreed. "We need to get her to a hospital. I don't see any blood, but the burns are worse than they look." She frowned, her fingers ghosting over Kana's midsection as if she were searching for something.
"Um," Amu said, raising her hand. "I could.. just heal them... I think?"
Shirogane froze. Then raised her head to look at Amu properly. "You think?"
Amu shrugged awkwardly. "I've done it before," she admitted. "At the school."
'Su, please help,' Amu thought at herself.
⁂
Kana had made mistakes in life.
Not a lot of them! She'd never been the kind of person who thought 'might as well commit every crime you can!'. More 'might as well figure out your limits and work from there.' As she laid there, her body held in place by a high-school(?) girl and her mind a kaleidoscope of confused and terrified emotions, she thought that this probably qualified as one of those mistakes.
And yet, despite being utterly defeated and exhausted to the bone, she wasn't dead or all that badly hurt or... actually, she didn't know what she would have expected a Blank to do with her; Mom had just told her to never under any circumstances get in the way of one, and lo and behold, getting in the way of one had ruined her. She'd known, deep down, that she wasn't a match for that sort of power... but hadn't had a choice except to try it.
And hadn't factored in the pink-haired weirdness magnet.
Then the Blank—'Shirogane' apparently—said her burns were potentially fatal, and...
Kana hadn't felt like laughing at that point. But she hadn't felt afraid either. 'Well, that sucks' had been more what she'd felt when it hit her; more than a little disgusted with herself for having rushed in without thinking first. Shutting off her sense of pain hadn't been a good idea either. She'd thought she'd be able to replicate the phoenix's regeneration, but...
Apparently not!
Her injuries hurt, when she let them.
And if they were really fatal then...
Well, then she'd get to see Yui-neechan sooner than expected, and probably have to take it up with God as to why he'd thought this was a fair deal. But that was it. No weeping and wailing or cursing at herself. She wasn't sure there was enough left of her for that.
Off there, in the distance, was her Shadow. The thing she'd wanted to break apart so she could fix that.
Forget 'fine'. Forget 'safe'. Yui-chan was missing! Except finding her had failed spectacularly and now everything was a mess and…
…and the Blank—Shirogane?—was leaning to the side so Hinamori Amu could kneel next to her, asking her how she felt in an annoyingly compassionate tone of voice, reaching out a hand towards the burns covering her chest.
Kana's mental powers weren't dead, exactly—but they might as well be, with a Blank physically touching her. It was all she could do just to hold herself together. Still, Hinamori somehow got a thought through anyway.
She considered, for a moment, if she should answer.
Might as well.
'-you -to yourself?'
'I was afraid,' she thought back tiredly, not having the energy left to lie. 'It wasn't my best idea.'
And if that wasn't an understatement. Kana was tired of taking stock of her wounds, but she did it anyway. Her entire body hurt, she was tired and hungry, and that wasn't considering what the churned-up bits of shadow-stuff and phoenix-stuff was doing to her mind. If she'd been in full form she could possibly have handled it, but then she wouldn't have done it either. She could admit that much, at least with her shadow in the same room to ping off of.
Not that she could tell if she was doing it.
'Do you regret it?' Hinamori asked.
What did it matter?
But there was the rub! Yes. Kana did regret it; regretted it so badly she thought she'd still be crying if she weren't so exhausted. She'd known from the beginning that Yui wouldn't thank her for this—that Yui-chan wanted Kana, not a Kana-shaped demon to protect her. And she'd known that breaking herself like this would hurt Yui as much as it hurt her. But she'd done it anyway! Because—because—because... because she didn't know what else to do! She'd been caught in a shadow fight, she knew what they were but she hated what she saw inside her other half, she had no reason to think anyone would come here—and Yui needed help right now, she told herself.
So... yes. She did regret it.
But...
But so what? There wasn't a way back. There wasn't anywhere else to go from here except down, and…
'I made mistakes,' Kana admitted at last, closing her eyes as she felt the beginnings of Hinamori's touch on her skin.
Oh for fuck's sake. Apparently Hinamori could also fix burns, on top of all her other tricks.
= = =
Would the real Nanami Kana please stand up.
No vote this time. I'm stopping here because chapter 2.12 became entirely too long. However, chapter 2.12.2 is already in its final editing pass and will be up in approximately one day.
Last edited:
Chapter 2.12.2
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Amu reached towards Kana at the same time as Su, and brushed against a wall of self-loathing. A roiling maelstrom of fear, anger and desperation; of hatred and guilt, and…
A mind that had been flayed. There was no other word for it.
On the surface, and at first glance, she'd looked almost fine. Ignoring the bloody clothes and the thirst and wounds and the wild look she'd had in her eyes, Second Kana still looked like... looked like Kana. Amu's friend, just... torn open and raw and hurting like hell on every level! Not fine, except compared to the reality. Every moment was a battle for self-control; every inch of her mind thrummed with an aching desire to shout and scream at Shadow-Kana, at Shirogane—at the world at large for allowing things like this to happen in the first place!
Amu had meant to at least let Su heal her burns without distraction, but that was impossible. Because Second Kana's mind was torn open. If First's was a pearl without its protective shell, then Second's was what was left after it had exploded from the inside, and Kana—Second Kana—was holding herself together with nothing but force. Force that was rapidly dwindling, now that she'd given up the fight. Kana no longer cared to keep herself alive.
The first impact of that was loss of consciousness.
There was, in every—well, in every healthy mind—a kind of travelling wave. Amu wasn't sure how else to put it, except like that. A wave that spun a circle around their mind a few times per second, a bit like a super-fast lighthouse… except that wave was missing in Kana, and hadn't been there to begin with. She'd made do with force instead.
That wave was also missing in people who were sleeping. Defined sleep, as far as she could tell. So had Kana been asleep?
…well, she certainly was now.
"Can you heal her?" Shirogane asked. Amu startled, almost forgetting to reply—so wrapped up in Kana's thoughts and feelings that everything else had faded into the background. "We'll need to evacuate her quickly if you can't."
"I can try," said Amu after a second's pause—hesitating before committing herself fully, in case there was a problem she didn't know about or…
Because she didn't like to make decisions? …was that why? 'Dia?' …Dia didn't answer, but then she rarely did. Ran and Su, however, shot her a muted sense of amusement in response. Yeah, that was why, so… perhaps she ought to start?
"I can try," she told Shirogane again, more confidently this time.
The burns were actually easy. Su flung herself at Kana's wounds while Amu was still finding her balance, diagnosing Kana with—nothing immediately fatal or hard for Su to fix—thank god. Burns across a large fraction of her body. Minor dehydration. Starvation—Kana hadn't eaten in at least three days—which meant her wounds were festering instead of healing, but nothing Su couldn't immediately take care of.
It still felt bad. It still felt very bad to see Kana like that, so beaten down that Amu was...
There were lots of thoughts about Manticore in Kana, a lot of guilt about—about—about what she'd done to herself! Not so much a burden of shame as an uncomfortable awareness of having screwed up monumentally and then kept going regardless—and-
Kana was asleep- no, not even asleep. Kana was comatose, but was reaching out to Amu regardless. Possibly on instinct. Except this- it felt like-
Pieces of her mind were coming loose.
Now that Kana had lost the singular purpose that was driving her, they'd decided that Amu was a safer place to be than Kana. Not the central pieces, not the really crucial ones, though half of those were actually in the other Kana, but if she couldn't fix this then… then it would be bad, right? This had to be.
"Kana?" she said out loud, a bit of desperation tinging her voice. "Um- Shadow-Kana? Er-"
"Just 'Kana' is fine," said Shadow-Kana dully from behind her, sounding—and feeling—as exhausted as Amu felt herself. She stepped closer, wincing as she felt the wounds in Kana's mind. "Fuck me."
"She'll be okay," Amu assured Shadow-Kana quickly, wishing she knew what to do. "She's... just..."
"Really?" Kana said sceptically. "You sure about that? I can feel what's happening as easily as you. She's dying."
Amu couldn't reply.
Shadow-Kana pursed her lips thoughtfully in response, a flicker of alarm running through her before she went still again. Some of the Kana-pieces had changed course, flowing towards Shadow-Kana now instead of Amu. Others, staying behind, were fighting to stay within the original Kana; knowing that that was the right place to be, even if the comatose Kana couldn't hold herself together anymore.
"What do you want me to do?" Shadow-Kana asked again, this time with a quiet, resolute determination; staring at herself with a focused intensity Amu wasn't sure she'd be capable of if their positions were reversed. "Tell me what to do."
"I..." Amu took a deep breath in an effort to focus her thoughts. "Can you hold her together? I'll try to heal her, so... can you keep her from dissolving?"
Shadow-Kana paused a second, then nodded stiffly. She knelt down next to Amu and laid a hand on Kana's shoulder, then one on her head—and squeezed, a wave of effort spreading outwards, trying to impose some kind of order on chaos itself. Amu tried to follow what she was doing, but couldn't.
"Shit," she muttered to herself as Amu continued working. "Shit."
It was working, though. Shadow-Kana felt disgusted just from touching her other half, but she was keeping her intact. Possibly just so her pieces wouldn't all end up in Amu instead. Or possibly because she didn't want to die... or maybe because-
"Utau?" Amu said.
"I don't have the foggiest idea what you want me to do," Utau admitted, but knelt beside her anyway. She, too, winced as she saw Kana's burns up close. "Why..."
"Later," Amu promised quietly as she tried to fix... everything that was wrong with Kana, all at once. She didn't know where to begin or what to prioritise. This wasn't as bad as Saaya had been... but Saaya had been literally in pieces, and she'd had the Lock at the time! All she could really do was wait for Kana to squeeze Kana's parts together, then move the pieces that seemed to fit with each other next to each other and hope they connected. It somewhat worked.
Oh, right.
"Try touching the Key to her?" Amu suggested, feeling a little helpless.
Utau grunted, but did as requested.
"It isn't doing anything," she said a few moments later.
"Oh." Amu stared down at the girl who lay on the ground before her, unsure what to say or do. If the Key didn't help, then... "Can you keep an eye on her injuries?
Utau nodded.
"Then... I think I need to talk to Kana." Amu let out a breath as she did so, feeling rather miserable. "Er-"
"Do what you have to do," Utau said quietly, her fingers brushing lightly against Amu's arm.
Amu gave her a grateful nod, then retreated into herself—shuddering briefly at the sudden switch from 'physical' to 'mental' reality. Her physical body slumped against Utau, who caught it in surprise. Mentally, however...
'I need to know how to fix this,' she told Kana. Shadow Kana, who was the one who was conscious and able to respond. 'I know you don't like her. I... I don't think I like her either. She tried to kill us! But I'm not going to let you die, and if she dies then so do you, right? I won't let that happen.'
Amu meant it. She'd come here for Kana and she wouldn't leave without her. Definitely not with Kana in two pieces!
Shadow-Kana laughed mentally in response—more of a brittle chortle than an actual laugh. An abrupt change of mood that made Amu want to reach out and hug her. Only half her focus was on the conversation, however. The other half helped hold Kana together, her mental fingers sliding around Shadow-Kana's to hold back the fragments of Kana that still were doing their best to run away. Su was still working on the burns, and that took some of her concentration as well. She didn't have enough left to run her body.
'Shirogane told me the basics,' she told Kana. 'Kana looks like she exploded from the inside. So explain to me. Please. What is a Shadow?'
Because Amu could tell.
She'd never met this 'shadow-self' version of Kana before, but she knew it regardless. It was the deepest, most hidden part of Kana—supposedly?
Except that every time they'd met, she'd also met Kana's 'shadow-self'. It was the deepest, most secret, most private part of Kana... and also the part of her most likely to reach out. She'd figured out why Shadow-Kana felt so immediately familiar—this was the exact part of Kana that she always would link up with. Usually it was deeper, and more an endpoint than the entire thing, but it was there. It really liked her. It was the part of Kana that did. She should have…
She should have noticed. But she hadn't.
Shadow Kana muttered something to herself, then let out a sigh and explained:
'Shadows are you, but you refuse to be them.'
Amu didn't understand. Or, well, she got that part, but...
'So... Shadows are copies? No? They can't be. But you're talking to me. You sound normal, so..?'
'Yes and no,' Shadow-Kana said tiredly, still holding onto herself—clinging to herself—with grim determination. 'Not in the proper sense. If she dies, I'll die. If I die... you heard Shirogane. She might survive, but it won't be much of a life.'
'Then why-'
'Is there any part of you that you refuse to admit?' Shadow-Kana asked her in turn. 'Something you'd go through hell not to tell to anyone?'
Amu wasn't sure how to respond to that, and was relieved when Shadow-Kana continued explaining a moment later:
'It's... look.' Her mental image shrugged. 'A Shadow is... they're you. Just you from a different perspective. And no, I'm not going into detail on this. This feels a hell of a lot different than I imagined it would when Mom was explaining. But they're you, not an evil twin or whatever. I'm her true self. Or truthful self, at least, like Shirogane said. We're still the same person.'
'But she... you don't seem alike?' Amu pointed out hesitantly. 'She seemed less... well... sane.'
'I'm pretty sure it's weird that I'm this sane after being cut in half,' Kana countered. 'And I think that's mostly 'cause I can see how my own mind works. So I can keep it together, regardless of what she says. That's... not how shadows usually function. Even so, she didn't actually get around to denying me properly. Not in a way that would release the limits of being her shadow.'
'So you're…' Amu wondered. 'Like a chara, then? Since they're still linked to me, I mean?'
'Yes,' said Kana flatly, then flinched as if burned by the admission—forcing herself to hold back from saying anything else by sheer force of will. 'And Amu-chan, I think I'm starting to get how you work. It's easier to tell when I'm like this.'
'...what?' Was that important?
'You're a shadow,' Kana answered slowly; haltingly, like she was doing something wrong just by speaking those words aloud. 'I don't know why it didn't click before. It should have. You're a shadow, without a persona keeping you locked away from the world. Your charas are to you, like the other Kana is to me. It shouldn't work that way at all. But you... I think... when we talk like this...'
She trailed off for a moment. Amu waited patiently, if curiously, not wanting to interrupt as Kana searched for the right words.
'Never mind,' Shadow-Kana eventually said, sounding embarrassed all of a sudden. 'I have no idea what I'm talking about. It can't work that way. Saving Kana... right.' She let out a puff of air. 'If you had an isolation chamber you could put her in, she'd be fine after a month or so. Might lose her telepathy, if she doesn't manage to accept me, but she'd still be...' She hesitated. 'She'd still be Kana. It's harder to break someone's mind than you think, so long as they still have a brain.'
But she might not like Amu anymore. Was that what her shadow-self was implying?
'...maybe?' Shadow-Kana admitted weakly in response, a moment later. 'It's hard to say without... I mean I like you and I don't really want to integrate her at all because... because... I want to go home,' she said finally, sounding about ready to cry. 'I just want to go home.'
And there it was. That was what Amu had been afraid of. That was what Kana didn't want to acknowledge or admit to.
Kana's mother was a piece of work; a monster, judging from her memories, worse than any of the people Amu had met—and often fought—in Easter. The same people who'd ruined her trust in adults. Being worse than that… that took some doing!
But unlike Utau's so-called stepfather, Kana's mother genuinely loved her. She couldn't blame her friend for wanting to go home… could she? Definitely not. And if Shirogane—no, if her own eyes were still working right, then the Kana she was talking to was just a single part of Kana as a whole. Amu wouldn't, couldn't protest that.
But that didn't mean she knew what to say.
'You're… allowed to want your mother,' Amu tried, gaining speed as she spoke. It came out a little stilted. 'It's okay. She… I'd be scared if mine was like that, Kana. But I can't imagine ever not wanting to go home. Not even if I couldn't.'
'But I could!' Shadow-Kana insisted.
'You could,' Amu acknowledged. It was an option. Technically.
Shadow-Kana already knew what she was going to say. She laughed again, this time a broken, unhappy sound that tore at Amu's heart. It hurt. Amu could tell that it hurt. It was just… there wasn't enough time…
'I just don't think I'd like you if you did,' she said.
Kana shuddered. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Amu wondered what this looked like to Utau. She had to try to teach her. Once she was done feeling like a louse.
'What if you come with me?' she asked, on instinct. 'Once all of this is over? I can't promise your mother back. But I can-' She sent Kana images. Playing with her sister. Mom, baking cookies with her. All… all the things that Kana couldn't have, that she missed so much, but- 'Please?' she begged. 'Kana? I know you'd like it. And mom would love you, honest.'
'That's a lie,' Kana pointed out. 'She's scared of me.'
That might be true, but…
'And Naomi won't allow it,' Shadow-Kana said. 'But... Naomi isn't here. The part of me that cares what she thinks is on the floor. The other Scavengers got captured. It's just me and Yui now.' She smiled slightly. 'Are you trying to broker a compromise?'
Amu smiled back at her, feeling a little silly all of a sudden.
'Is it working?'
Shadow-Kana shook her head in response, not that she could see it; a twinkle of humour present in her thoughts regardless. She liked Amu's idea. Would it help at all, was the question? She'd leave the question of 'convincing Mom' for another day.
'Do you think you could join back with Other Kana if she agrees to try it?' Amu asked. 'I know there's Yui and the others, but… there's got to be another way. I have a lot of friends. We saved Utau already, and she was… nearly as badly off! There's got to be an option that doesn't need you to sacrifice yourself. Right? …is that a decent compromise?'
'Don't quit your day job,' Kana joked back at Amu. 'Fine. Fine. If she agrees to. If all you want is to stabilise her, then we just have to keep doing what we're doing. It might take half an hour, but she should at least wake up, and then she'll be able to talk.'
'And then you can come home with me?' Amu asked her hopefully.
'...that'll be up to her,' Shadow-Kana answered.
⁂
"Mom studies souls," Shadow-Kana said. "What makes us people. Why we work the way we do. The difference between sorcerers and ordinary people—stuff like that."
They'd patched up Kana's wounds, and now they were waiting for her to wake up so they could feed her. She wasn't precisely starving, but there was—according to Kana—nothing here to eat, and she'd gone hungry for several days.
Her Shadow mostly seemed nervous. She absolutely, one hundred percent didn't want to fight against Kana, a fact that still made Shirogane look like she'd swallowed a coffee-scented pineapple. Kana's mind was starting to congeal a little, Amu thought, so maybe she'd wake up soon?
Not that Amu was an expert.
And so, lacking any other options, Shadow-Kana was explaining herself.
"...she's also why I know how shadows work," she said. "I'm her 'true self', all that jazz. It's sort of obvious from this side, but I've known for years."
Shirogane nodded.
"I did wonder," she said. "What would happen if someone already knew. I take it she still doesn't accept you."
Yes, that had been fairly obvious- Amu thought.
"Accept that I'm part of her?" Kana said. "Sure. Accept that I should be? Nope." She sighed, running a hand along the back of her head. "Probably 'cause of… all the stuff we can do. I'm a little saner than the usual shadow, because I can see the flaws and dead ends and work around them. Kana makes up for it, by being a little…"
"Homicidal?" Utau offered.
"...unfortunately," Shadow-Kana agreed. "We're bad at lying to ourselves. Not so bad at… yeah. That."
A shiver ran through Kana's body, bringing them all up short. Amu stared at her for a while, but a full minute passed and nothing more happened. More of her mind had joined up, however. There was a rapid ping-pong of pulses passing between Kana and her shadow, nothing so complicated as a thought, but it seemed to be giving her a scaffolding.
Could she… should she? Amu gave in, and patted Kana's hair a little. The others obligingly didn't notice. The conversation continued.
"Shadows are supposed to be rejected," Shirogane said. "It's a part of how they're made."
A pause.
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"No."
Shadow-Kana glowered at Shirogane, and then rolled her eyes. "Then I'll do it. Like I care to keep their secrets, seriously. Shadows are the part of you that you reject—I'm pretty sure you know that. Yeah? I sure do. But they're also a lot more. Every part that isn't conscious, if you look at it the right way. Lots and lots of stuff, most not really shadow-related. Mom studies souls, so she knows just where to cut them to get pieces that do what you want."
Kana shivered again as she spoke, in part because the remnants of her burns still ached, and in part because her thoughts kept misbehaving. This time they didn't pay it as much mind.
Was- what Kana had said- also what she'd done to herself? …no, to the shadows she'd found? What Amu could see of her mind suggested that it was. The unconscious Kana's mind was still messed up, but there were all sorts of… other pieces. Flecks of burning gold, or oily ashes…
Shadow-Kana removed each one carefully as soon as she noticed, and Amu tried to follow her lead, but she was mostly relegated to observer. Still. Between Amu and Kana's shadow-self, they were keeping her from… dying. Kana wasn't healed. Couldn't heal, Amu suspected, unless the two of them fused. Definitely couldn't live outside this place.
According to Shadow-Kana it should have been possible for her to leave, except that her shadow-self would stay behind. Normally that would be fine—physically separating them didn't mean tearing their mind in half, and might in fact help them reintegrate—but right now Shadow-Kana was one of the two people keeping Kana from a bad case of permanent coma.
'Apathy syndrome,' she'd called it.
The problem was, Kana genuinely seemed to think she'd be better off with a gigantic Shadow-Kana-sized hole in her. Amu didn't know what to say about that. Nobody—nobody she knew—would have called that line of thinking sane. But Kana didn't feel sane. Defining 'sane' as 'not literally falling apart'.
"-and this whole thing," Shadow-Kana said. "You reject your shadow, then have a fight with it! Accept it, maybe. Suddenly, great powers! Or great embarrassment, right? Because the only way you can properly reject something like me is if someone's there to see it, and did I forget to mention they're the parts of you that you dislike? Mom certainly didn't. That's why she got so excited when I learned to mind-control people."
Shirogane frowned at that. "There's always an audience," she said. "Even if no one wants to see it."
"Sure, there has to be! Mom thought I'd be able to make someone 'reject' a specific part of them. To make a specific power, or maybe just make them controllable," Shadow-Kana said. "Not that it ever worked. You sound like you've experience. Seen this before?"
"Nothing... precisely like this, no," Shirogane replied cautiously. "Although I know a few people who have, ah-" She waved one hand at the unconscious Kana in a vague gesture, before letting it fall back to her side again. "-gone through something like this."
"Of course you have," Shadow-Kana said, nodding to herself. "Otherwise you wouldn't be a Blank."
Shirogane paused at that.
"And what, exactly, is a 'blank'?" she asked.
"Someone like you," Shadow-Kana said dismissively. "I bet magic barely works on you. Right? And stuff like contracts, curses, anything that'd touch your mind... I bet you don't even know that's possible. Because..." She trailed off, her eyebrows raising in surprise as Shirogane nodded along to her words.
"I believe I can see where you're going," Shirogane said. "We'd noticed. I have comrades. Sometimes we fought beings that induced fear or temporary insanity, but it had little effect on me. If any. I had thought that was simply my inherent rationality."
The girl rolled her eyes at those last words. "No. You're just immune. Which means, if anyone from that side of the block ever even noticed you, they'd have stayed away. You can't sign contracts, so there's no chance they'd try to trade. And people like you are too scary to cross." She blinked at Shirogane's suddenly slightly pensive expression.
Kana moaned in her sleep. Simultaneously, Amu felt her mind light up from one end to the other, pain signals finally making it through. There was no damage to her body anymore, but…
"She's about to wake up," Amu said.
Her shadow grimaced. "...then I'll make this fast. Amu, Kana was trying to kill me so she could take me apart. I told you, she's not actually suicidal. I don't know what you've planned, but- don't start with that. We took a phoenix apart, bet you anything she thought it'd work better on me. Also, um… I'll try to keep myself together, but…"
"I'm not letting her hurt you," Amu insisted.
Shirogane, for some reason, pinched her nose.
Amu didn't get a chance to ask for the reason, as Second Kana had woken up properly, and was glaring daggers at the Shadow.
At least they were metaphorical daggers, though the Shadow Kana had taken the reasonable precaution of moving so that the Blank was between them.
"You let me wake up, huh?" It sounded as bitter as her thoughts felt, resting in Amu's hands.
Shadow Kana shook her head, offended by the question and frowning past Shirogane. "That isn't the sort of person we want to be. Of course we did. You're the one that tried to kill me."
"I tried to take you apart," Kana countered, as though that was an improvement. "I was trying to make myself better. It should be possible. I did it with the damn phoenix. That turned out to be a poor idea." she finished tiredly, her breathing a little less ragged than it had been when she woke. "Amu, don't stop whatever it is you're doing. I'm starting to feel normal again."
Amu decided not to mention that Shadow-Kana was doing most of it.
"Normal… we haven't been normal in a long time, Me."
Amu hesitated, scolded herself for hesitating again, then stopped herself as Utau nudged her and nodded at Shirogane.
Who seemed to think that the two Kana's arguing was a positive? Or at least she wasn't objecting to the Shadow Kana using her as a safety barrier to throw her comments from. This would be a lot easier if she could just tell what the detective wanted, rather than guessing.
"Let me guess, 'normal' would be running back to Mom?"
"You know that isn't what I meant." Shadow-Kana groaned. "-but it's not like she would hurt us if we did!"
"No?" Second Kana retorted with a snarl, her eyes flaring red for a moment. "Do you really think that?"
"Yes!" Shadow-Kana nearly shouted back at her—though her expression faltered slightly at that, the anger on her face twisting into a sadder expression. "Because she could have. Remember? She let us escape instead of letting us get hurt. She'd still take us back, if we asked her to."
Second Kana went silent, staring at the ground; unwilling or unable to meet First Kana's gaze any longer. Shadow-Kana continued speaking regardless.
"She loves us," Shadow-Kana insisted. "She loves Yui-neechan, she loves us, and she's why there were always convenient, nearly unprotected stockpiles of Naomi and Aoi's drugs that we could steal. So we wouldn't be at risk while doing it. If she wanted to hurt us she already would've. But instead she loves us; she gives us pretty clothes and her time and- and everything- s-she let us kill her colleagues so we'd be safe..."
Shadow-Kana trailed off, sniffling quietly as tears dripped down her cheeks while Second Kana glared in disgust.
'I want to go home.'
The thought wasn't so much a whisper as an idea. An aching desire that had nowhere else to go but inside Kana's mind; yet inside that mind it ran into Amu, who was still holding her together.
'I want to go home!'
Second Kana growled, nearly launching herself at her shadow, for no apparent reason so far as Shirogane and Utau were concerned. Utau at least could feel her emotions—but Kana's emotions had been such a whirlpool the entire evening, Amu wouldn't blame her if she tried to tune them out. Amu, fortunately, couldn't technically feel them. She could tell what they were—yes, and absolutely—but that wasn't quite the same thing.
'Don't do it!' Amu warned, before Shirogane was forced to hold her back.
She wasn't sure to what degree the 'Kana' she was looking at cared about her opinion. But she stopped moving, at least. After a moment she settled back, slumping down.
Amu took a chance, and dived into the mess of Kana's thoughts.
She had to know.
…
It hurt. To see someone so close to her be happy while she wasn't. To be happy for her while Kana wasn't. To be so sure that she'd never see her family again, that she was a terrible person for wanting to. It wasn't just her mother and her sister. She'd had a father as well, who might or might not also be a monster. She'd had an aunt, who definitely was.
A father who'd let her ride his shoulders and named her 'Kana'. The same aunt who'd taught her to read, and who always had a piece of candy in her pocket, until the day her parents would no longer let her visit.
It hurt more, to know she'd be an awful person for returning.
…
Except…
…
Was it even possible to talk to Kana? Amu had to assume it was. There was a wall in Kana's mind. Even as broken-down as she was, she was holding her shadow-self at a distance. If she didn't—if Kana just fully relaxed, which wasn't the same thing as being unconscious—then Amu thought they'd have fused back together by now. Maybe that was wishful thinking.
Maybe it wasn't.
"Shirogane…" she said, looking above Kana at the stranger. She was taking a risk here. "Do you think it's wrong of Kana to want to go home?"
It took a moment. Shirogane shifted, narrowing her eyes at Amu for a moment.
"To want to go home?" she stressed. "No. To actually do it?" She hesitated. "Not even that. It's the right decision not to, from what I have heard, and a mature one. Perhaps overly so."
Now it was Kana's turn to shift, shrinking slightly in on herself. Shirogane finished.
"You're a human being, and a child. You're allowed to want to go home."
The wall in Kana's mind trembled at her words, the jagged pieces of it briefly aligning themselves into a more coherent whole—and then Kana held her shadow-self apart. Again.
"That's not very fair, Amu-chan," said Second Kana. Her voice was soft, almost broken, but still loud enough that the others could hear it. "How am I supposed to..?"
To... what? Fight? Shout at them? Complain that they'd overheard all her secrets?
Yes, all of that. But Kana didn't want to fight her. And even if she were to try...
"You're not," Amu said. "You'd just hate yourself more," she said, propelling a surge of calm and acceptance into Kana's subconscious. "You know what always makes me feel better?" she asked out loud.
"Maybe..?" Kana hazarded.
"Food," Amu declared. "We both need to calm down, and some cake sounds about right. What about you?" She looked at Shirogane questioningly.
"...tapioca pudding?" Shirogane replied after a few seconds of silence; a brief expression of amusement flickering across her face at the absurdity of the situation they were in. "My father made some occasionally."
"Utau?" Amu prodded.
Utau stared at the three of them for a few seconds before blinking quietly and tilting her head to one side. "...salt ramen?" she offered hesitantly.
Amu clapped her hands together, selecting absurdity. "Salt chocolate ramen pudding it is, then. Who's hungry?"
Kana's stomach rumbled.
⁂
Strawberry chocolate cake was served. With chocolate milk, because in Kana's opinion—either one—you could never have such a thing as too much chocolate. And in Ran's opinion everything was better with strawberries on top! So, of course, chocolate strawberry cake was the obvious solution.
Calming down was the solution, and Amu let Su take over for a little while. The girl was, after all, unflappable.
One of the desks of the half-melted Abandoned Laboratory (tm) (subtitles provided by Su) was repurposed into a table (subtitle: thanks Yui). Paper plates, paper cups and plastic knives were procured from seemingly nowhere (subtitle: oh wait, literally nowhere) and shortly thereafter—as Utau watched with a mixture of bemusement and fond exasperation—Amu quietly slipped back into her own body, relaxed and ready to do nothing more strenuous than eat cake with her friends.
Right…
Well, it wasn't like she'd ever gone away. Ran and Su weren't different people, they were more like... different personalities.
Which was how she tried explaining that to Kana, sitting with one Kana to her left, Utau to her right, and the second Kana to the right of Utau. Shirogane watched their tea party with something like befuddlement, having been given a big plate of pudding to snack on.
The fight hadn't been averted, but it was… on hold.
"But I don't act like her," Kana pointed out between bites of her cake. "And you're not like Su. Very much not Su. ...dunno about Ran."
"I think that makes her more likely to be right," Amu countered. "Besides, my eyes are glowy too. See?"
Really, 'being a shadow' helped make sense of a whole lot of weird situations. Not, Amu admitted, that she had any idea what the claim was supposed to imply—other than having yellow, glowy eyes. It made sense of that at least.
She nibbled her cake.
Kana wasn't nibbling. Kana was still starving, and had devoured three slices of cake before Utau had even finished her first; two cups of milk before Amu had even filled hers; and was halfway through a fourth slice now.
She wasn't sure if she should count Shadow Kana's slices separately, but enough questions had been raised about what the two actually were for her to leave that question well enough alone.
Amu pursed her lips at the thought, frowning thoughtfully as she cut her own cake into tiny, bite-sized pieces and let the strawberry sauce run all over them. Then she shrugged helplessly and leaned back in her seat, stabbing a piece of strawberry cake with a plastic knife and putting it in her mouth before asking Utau how her cake was doing.
"Very... salty," Utau replied after a few seconds. "I don't think I've ever had ramen-flavoured chocolate before."
"That's because it's made with ramen," Amu informed her, grinning at Utau's dumbfounded expression. "Just like regular chocolate is made from beans. I don't know what kind of ramen this is, though..." she added, prodding the unknown fluffy substance dubiously with one plastic knife before cutting herself a bite-sized piece. "But Kana needed something more nutritious. Right, Kana?"
"...yeah," Kana said after a few seconds of hesitation—hiding an uncomfortable flinch at the words. "It's good." She coughed and sat up straighter. "I..."
Amu sighed. "You're thinking too much," she told Kana quietly. "I just want you to be happy. So please, talk to us. I want all sides of you to be happy."
'If you absolutely have to hurt yourself, at least tell us why?'
"I'll try," Kana replied after a moment or so; and this time Amu was certain there was no strain on her at all. She was, for now, in balance.
It was a balance that involved Amu holding Kana upright, which she couldn't do forever. But that was still a sort of balance.
⁂
"Mom studies souls," Kana repeated, for the third time that day. "What makes us people, but it's also what lets magic work. Like what you call psionics?" She looked questioningly at Amu, who shrugged at her. "What the two of us can use? It's one type of magic, but there are a lot of others.
"Because of that... well, my family is secretive about a lot of things," Kana continued after a few seconds of thought. "And because I ran away when I was ten... or was I eleven?" She frowned, scratching her chin thoughtfully with one finger before giving up and continuing on. "Because I left when I was young, there's a lot she couldn't tell me. Traditionally, apparently, kids aren't told anything at all until they're twelve. But the thing is..." Kana drew a deep breath.
"Mom did the same thing," she said. "Ran away from home, I mean. Because her family is nuts, and she was scared of raising me where they could find us. The only one who knows where she lives is Aunt Noriko, and Mom hasn't let her visit since... for years. I'm not sure." Kana grimaced slightly. "Mom thinks they're evil madmen. Says it all, don't you think?"
She waved her hands around at the ruins of Manticore around them as she spoke—at the ruined laboratory full of computers and dead screens and security cameras everywhere, the surgical tools in one corner, the molten scrap of child-sized cages stuffed into a corner—before grimacing slightly at the sight of Amu's stricken face and hastily resuming her explanation.
"She started studying psionics, because... Amu, have you ever pushed so hard you've gotten tired? Tried to do something you couldn't, without realising you couldn't?" Kana looked expectantly at Amu, who hesitated for a moment or so before nodding once at her.
"Of course." Obviously?
"If you do that with ordinary magic, you get brain damage," Shadow-Kana supplied. "Serious brain damage. Even if it's only once. It doesn't happen to persona users, like..." She hesitated, looking at Shirogane. "...you? I doubt I'm getting one from this absurdity."
Kana and Shadow-Kana were both trying to pretend the other didn't exist. That didn't stop them completing each other's sentences.
"I see," Shirogane replied, shaking her head. "I'd never heard."
"Getting back to mom, her self-declared life's work was to figure out why persona users don't hurt themselves by using their power. And then Manticore offered to let her work with psionics, which..." Kana hesitated, glancing at Shirogane. Being a Kana, somebody forged on.
"Which are kinda just better at everything," Shadow-Kana said. "Betcha you can just do a few tricks. Right? Two or three at most. They're strong, but you've got what might as well be a spell list. There's no way you can do anything offensive other than that lightning. Thing is though, lightning works on most things. Especially if you're also really hard to hurt."
Shirogane nodded, a slight smile playing on her lips.
"But psions are more... general," Kana continued, a hint of pride seeping into her voice as she spoke. "'Cause we're not leveraging fixed archetypes. We don't use psionics, we are the psionics. ...and unlike sorcerers like mom, using it doesn't hurt us." She held up one finger for emphasis. "Which means we can just sorta... make shit up on the spot. There's no fixed structure."
'Is that why you practically flayed yourself?' Amu asked—a private whisper inside their heads to keep Shirogane from overhearing. 'Because you were trying to-'
Kana shook her head slightly at Amu's words, sending a trickle of denial through their link and continuing on regardless. 'Accident. Kinda. I saw my shadow and I kinda just-'
'How!? And why!?'
Kana held her head against an apparent headache. More words tried to make their way out of her mouth, from 'everything she said was a lie!' to 'it wasn't my fault'—before finally settling on nothing at all. With a little help from Amu. Kana's self-control was, bluntly, shot—they were substituting for it by mind-controlling her. Amu didn't think she even realised what she was doing half the time.
But Amu was more than willing to help her along.
She just sort of hoped the story would lead to some kind of resolution.
⁂
It mainly seemed to lead to exposition.
"Psionics are a new thing," Kana said, after scarfing down a bit more 'cake'. "They started popping up a bit less than a decade ago, for no obvious reason at all. 'least, none that mom or Manticore has heard about. It's worldwide, but she says there are more in Europe and Japan. Particularly Japan. Hence Manticore.
"I don't really know what it was like at first. I've heard people say their job is to keep Japan safe from psionics, but I don't know when that turned into keeping kids in cages. Probably after they found out what psionics can do."
"Mind control?" Amu asked.
"Yeah. No. That's just me, and mom's not scared of me. Anyhow... that was later. It's more stuff like..." She waved one hand vaguely towards Shirogane before taking a bite out of another piece of cake and continuing on while chewing.
She was definitely just trying to avoid the point.
"Flamethrowers," she got out between the crumbs, swallowing and gesturing vaguely upwards with one hand. "Teleporting knives into people. Kids that move so fast, they might as well be teleporting. And you, Amu. I saw you on TV, tearing demons to pieces with your mind. You know that'd be scary, yeah? 'cause, um. We saw that, and then I thought, 'Wow. I had lunch with that girl, and she didn't murder me.'" Kana sagged. "And the speedster? That's my sister's friend, Yuna. She's… really nice. Or she was, the last time I saw her," she said glumly. "Three years ago. Her brother still thinks she's alive."
'...because I told him,' Kana told her. 'Don't tell anyone. He might get disappeared as well.'
Amu blinked, and then blinked again as she tried to make the dots line up. Kana saw the horror in her mind and shook her head—a brief rueful smile flickering across her face as she did so.
"I still can't believe Naomi thought you might be dangerous," she said quietly, mostly to herself, a hint of amused incredulity colouring her voice. "I wanted to find you in the hospital, Amu. Never think I didn't. Naomi's the one who decided... you're probably..."
'...obviously not a plant from Manticore,' she continued silently, making Amu shiver briefly as she completed that sentence inside her mind, feeling the truth of it from Kana's mind. 'You're not the problem.'
"...Kana," Amu started.
"Yeah?" Both of them answered.
Amu paused.
"You started calling me Amu again," she finally pointed out. Shadow-Kana perked up a little. "Is that…"
"I'm feeling more like myself, yeah. I guess." Kana shivered. "Just don't stop holding on to me, please? Um." She glanced down at her hands, which weren't in contact with Amu at all, and pointedly didn't look at her Shadow. After a moment, she tentatively stretched out some fingers in Amu's direction. Amu gratefully let herself touch them.
Kana shivered a little, but her mind felt a lot more… manageable.
Shirogane held up a hand, interrupting them with a quiet cough.
"I've also seen the footage," she said gently. "Of Hinamori-san defeating the demons. I expect that describes a large fraction of the planet now. Hinamori-san, you're walking around with a loaded gun at all times. I shouldn't need to explain why that would frighten people."
Amu considered that for a few seconds and then nodded silently in agreement. Utau slipped a hand around Amu's shoulders as she did so.
Shirogane continued. "Unlike what many people think, there is no absolute rule against minors handling weapons in our country," she explained calmly, her tone reassuringly neutral. "But if they do so, it must be for a good reason—usually out of necessity—and in addition they must be suitably trained. In your case no such training officially exists, as yet, but you should expect to hear from someone soon. I don't necessarily think you should worry. If you've gone this long without harming anyone, then..." Shirogane shrugged, letting the sentence trail off as she did so. "They can't afford to look bad to the public. That's going to include this Manticore.
"Given your powers—and your personality—if it were up to me I'd allow an exception in your case." Shirogane continued on, her words still measured and calm in spite of the topic. "That may not be the case for many people less experienced with violence, which is a point I imagine is being discussed at higher levels of government right now. It does not surprise me that an organisation meant to preempt the issue already exists. However, given what I have heard of it thus far..."
Shirogane leaned forward in her seat slightly as she continued speaking; a frown on her face and her voice growing sharper by degrees. "I cannot help but find myself disapproving."
'That's something,' Amu heard Kana think. 'Even if it's not helpful at all...'
"Anyway," Kana said aloud. "Manticore was already nasty. And then Mom tried to teach Yui magic, and it all went..."
"Pear-shaped?" Utau suggested when Kana trailed off again, her words causing Amu to smile briefly. Only briefly.
"Badly," Kana said. "Really badly. I don't really want to talk 'bout it. Is that okay? Please?"
"Sure," Amu said softly, tightening her grip on Kana's hand again. "And I'd rather talk about you."
"...don't we have a dragon to kill or something?" Kana asked after a few seconds of silence.
Amu gave her an unhappy look, and Kana sighed heavily in response, closing her eyes for a second or two.
"Yui-chan is right here," she said. "That's her power. Making places. Turning herself into places, when she takes it too far. It's why I can't let her sleep on her own… well, that and the monsters from her nightmares, like…" She gestured uncomfortably at the room around them. "These. Sometimes I'm in them as well. Those are the worst. But I've never seen her this… spread out. Somewhere in here there'll still be that little girl… if we can find her."
"Kana," Amu said. "About your Shadow-self..."
Kana let out a bitter chuckle.
"Mom and her 'true self' bullshit," she replied quietly; a sad smile flickering across her face as she spoke, before it melted away into something resembling disgust. "My shadow wants to give up on Yui-chan, Amu. All these years, all that fighting, and she wants to just give up and go home. Like nothing's ever changed. Like I don't know Mom is just as bad as my grandpa."
Shadow Kana started to speak up in protest, a building rage that barely stopped at Amu's slightly panicked mental nudge.
"...would you ever do that?" Amu asked after a second or so, a hint of a tremor in her voice as she spoke that vanished under a wave of calm. Courtesy of Ran.
'Of course not.'
Kana closed her eyes with a grimace at Amu's distress, and let out a shuddering breath before answering. "Never," she said firmly. "Not in a million years. I'll find her. Even if it takes a thousand years. She won't die while she's here. She just isn't… her."
'Then does it matter if there's still a part of you that wants to?' Amu wanted to ask. 'That Shadow-Kana looks so wrong to you. She's still you. Do you really have to kill her?'
The answer was instant, even if Kana didn't want it to be: Yes. Yes, she did. She couldn't. But she did.
Amu opened her mouth to protest, only to find herself interrupted by Utau.
"And would accepting her change you?" Utau asked quietly—a slightly sad smile on her face, Iru scratching her neck as she spoke. "Would accepting her mean you'd go back to your mother? Would it make you a different person than the one Amu seems to love?"
Utau gestured at Kana as she spoke—one hand towards the girl, the other resting on Amu's shoulder; warm and comforting and unwavering—her voice growing firmer by the second.
"Or would you still be the same person you were last week, but with a new perspective on who you could be?" Utau challenged. "Is that such a bad thing? If you're anything like me…" Utau trailed off at those last words, her expression twisting into something uncomfortable for a split-second before she forced it back into neutrality again. "-you'll do the right thing regardless, once you know."
Utau clenched Amu's hand, trembling slightly.
"...no," Kana said. "No, I don't suppose it would." She sighed. "I've tried being a demon. If you've got a better idea… I guess I can try being me."
= = =
And then what?
There's no huge question of whether or not she'll pull herself together. You'd need to be insane to not want that, and Kana has recovered… sufficiently. There's still a question of on what terms, which will be the final vote of this arc. Yui still needs rescue, but in typical Persona form she'll be fine for now; no-one ever worried people would starve to death while they were searching for them. Which is odd, now I think of it.
A few options present themselves. Note that these select not just Kana's living situation, but how the next scene plays out; it'll work in a way that makes this happen.
[ ] Amu's bid.
- Amu wants to take Kana home, because of course she does. Hopefully Kana will be more welcome than a certain catboy. She isn't repeating her mistake of hiding a boarder, but she doesn't want to let Kana out of sight.
- This was Amu's first idea for a compromise, and something along these lines would have the best impact on her mentality.
- Obvious flaw: Kana is a confessed murderer, Naoto will want to do something about that.
- The primary story effect is she'll be around a lot, although it'll be some time before she's active in any non-fluff manner other than perhaps hunting down Yui. Naoto would visit to keep an eye on her.
[ ] Naoto's bid.
- The twelve-year-old being a "self-confessed murderer" is a big concern, but so is everything she's heard tonight, and Naoto isn't going to march Kana up to the nearest police station. For… a number of reasons. She might, however, want to sit on her. Yes—that makes two people who'd quite like Kana to live with them, if for very different reasons.
- There's a part of Kana who really wants someone older to take charge. There are also large parts of Kana that would object violently to this. It depends a lot on how competent Naoto is; fortunately, she is highly competent.
- Obvious flaw: Kana doesn't want to.
- The primary story effect is it'll pull in the rest of the investigation crew a great deal faster, and possibly the Kirijo group as well. At a distance, however; Naoto isn't likely to ask Amu for help in any normal situation.
- Although chances are she'll visit to introduce herself as Ami's teacher. Because someone has to babysit her.
[ ] Utau's bid.
- Look, Kana mostly needs someone with a vague idea of what she's been going through.
- This person doesn't exist, but Utau thinks she has a shot. And has connections enough to help Kana rent an apartment of her own, to let her keep some distance if that's what she wants. It's not clear that she does, but it would prevent a great deal of potential fallout.
- Obvious flaw: Kana really shouldn't be on her own. Amu is willing to be a 24/7 bodyguard, so why are we leaving her to herself? She can't even cook well!
- Kana would like the idea at first, but quickly mess up. She never has lived on her own, and isn't the type to do well. In practice it devolves to Amu's bid, slightly delayed. Or Naoto's. Depends.
- The primary story effect is a mildly depressed Kana, who might realise she's not as grown up as she thinks.
[ ] Kana's bid.
- Kana is entirely capable of running away and handling herself, or at least she thinks she is. She can escape. Probably. And then she can… visit Amu while hunting down Yui? She isn't exactly sure what her plan is.
- She'd be creaking at the seams. Not much hope of a clean reintegration if this is the best she can come up with.
- Too many flaws to mention. I don't think anyone will go for this.
- The primary story effect is… do you want a tragedy? Look, I'm including this because I feel she should get a say. Not because her idea is a good one.
[ ] Write-in
- You don't have to write-in. Directly expanding on one of the canned options is mostly pointless; any details you add would likely come up as in-story votes regardless. Though you can if you want, or to propose something very different.
A mind that had been flayed. There was no other word for it.
On the surface, and at first glance, she'd looked almost fine. Ignoring the bloody clothes and the thirst and wounds and the wild look she'd had in her eyes, Second Kana still looked like... looked like Kana. Amu's friend, just... torn open and raw and hurting like hell on every level! Not fine, except compared to the reality. Every moment was a battle for self-control; every inch of her mind thrummed with an aching desire to shout and scream at Shadow-Kana, at Shirogane—at the world at large for allowing things like this to happen in the first place!
Amu had meant to at least let Su heal her burns without distraction, but that was impossible. Because Second Kana's mind was torn open. If First's was a pearl without its protective shell, then Second's was what was left after it had exploded from the inside, and Kana—Second Kana—was holding herself together with nothing but force. Force that was rapidly dwindling, now that she'd given up the fight. Kana no longer cared to keep herself alive.
The first impact of that was loss of consciousness.
There was, in every—well, in every healthy mind—a kind of travelling wave. Amu wasn't sure how else to put it, except like that. A wave that spun a circle around their mind a few times per second, a bit like a super-fast lighthouse… except that wave was missing in Kana, and hadn't been there to begin with. She'd made do with force instead.
That wave was also missing in people who were sleeping. Defined sleep, as far as she could tell. So had Kana been asleep?
…well, she certainly was now.
"Can you heal her?" Shirogane asked. Amu startled, almost forgetting to reply—so wrapped up in Kana's thoughts and feelings that everything else had faded into the background. "We'll need to evacuate her quickly if you can't."
"I can try," said Amu after a second's pause—hesitating before committing herself fully, in case there was a problem she didn't know about or…
Because she didn't like to make decisions? …was that why? 'Dia?' …Dia didn't answer, but then she rarely did. Ran and Su, however, shot her a muted sense of amusement in response. Yeah, that was why, so… perhaps she ought to start?
"I can try," she told Shirogane again, more confidently this time.
The burns were actually easy. Su flung herself at Kana's wounds while Amu was still finding her balance, diagnosing Kana with—nothing immediately fatal or hard for Su to fix—thank god. Burns across a large fraction of her body. Minor dehydration. Starvation—Kana hadn't eaten in at least three days—which meant her wounds were festering instead of healing, but nothing Su couldn't immediately take care of.
It still felt bad. It still felt very bad to see Kana like that, so beaten down that Amu was...
There were lots of thoughts about Manticore in Kana, a lot of guilt about—about—about what she'd done to herself! Not so much a burden of shame as an uncomfortable awareness of having screwed up monumentally and then kept going regardless—and-
Kana was asleep- no, not even asleep. Kana was comatose, but was reaching out to Amu regardless. Possibly on instinct. Except this- it felt like-
Pieces of her mind were coming loose.
Now that Kana had lost the singular purpose that was driving her, they'd decided that Amu was a safer place to be than Kana. Not the central pieces, not the really crucial ones, though half of those were actually in the other Kana, but if she couldn't fix this then… then it would be bad, right? This had to be.
"Kana?" she said out loud, a bit of desperation tinging her voice. "Um- Shadow-Kana? Er-"
"Just 'Kana' is fine," said Shadow-Kana dully from behind her, sounding—and feeling—as exhausted as Amu felt herself. She stepped closer, wincing as she felt the wounds in Kana's mind. "Fuck me."
"She'll be okay," Amu assured Shadow-Kana quickly, wishing she knew what to do. "She's... just..."
"Really?" Kana said sceptically. "You sure about that? I can feel what's happening as easily as you. She's dying."
Amu couldn't reply.
Shadow-Kana pursed her lips thoughtfully in response, a flicker of alarm running through her before she went still again. Some of the Kana-pieces had changed course, flowing towards Shadow-Kana now instead of Amu. Others, staying behind, were fighting to stay within the original Kana; knowing that that was the right place to be, even if the comatose Kana couldn't hold herself together anymore.
"What do you want me to do?" Shadow-Kana asked again, this time with a quiet, resolute determination; staring at herself with a focused intensity Amu wasn't sure she'd be capable of if their positions were reversed. "Tell me what to do."
"I..." Amu took a deep breath in an effort to focus her thoughts. "Can you hold her together? I'll try to heal her, so... can you keep her from dissolving?"
Shadow-Kana paused a second, then nodded stiffly. She knelt down next to Amu and laid a hand on Kana's shoulder, then one on her head—and squeezed, a wave of effort spreading outwards, trying to impose some kind of order on chaos itself. Amu tried to follow what she was doing, but couldn't.
"Shit," she muttered to herself as Amu continued working. "Shit."
It was working, though. Shadow-Kana felt disgusted just from touching her other half, but she was keeping her intact. Possibly just so her pieces wouldn't all end up in Amu instead. Or possibly because she didn't want to die... or maybe because-
"Utau?" Amu said.
"I don't have the foggiest idea what you want me to do," Utau admitted, but knelt beside her anyway. She, too, winced as she saw Kana's burns up close. "Why..."
"Later," Amu promised quietly as she tried to fix... everything that was wrong with Kana, all at once. She didn't know where to begin or what to prioritise. This wasn't as bad as Saaya had been... but Saaya had been literally in pieces, and she'd had the Lock at the time! All she could really do was wait for Kana to squeeze Kana's parts together, then move the pieces that seemed to fit with each other next to each other and hope they connected. It somewhat worked.
Oh, right.
"Try touching the Key to her?" Amu suggested, feeling a little helpless.
Utau grunted, but did as requested.
"It isn't doing anything," she said a few moments later.
"Oh." Amu stared down at the girl who lay on the ground before her, unsure what to say or do. If the Key didn't help, then... "Can you keep an eye on her injuries?
Utau nodded.
"Then... I think I need to talk to Kana." Amu let out a breath as she did so, feeling rather miserable. "Er-"
"Do what you have to do," Utau said quietly, her fingers brushing lightly against Amu's arm.
Amu gave her a grateful nod, then retreated into herself—shuddering briefly at the sudden switch from 'physical' to 'mental' reality. Her physical body slumped against Utau, who caught it in surprise. Mentally, however...
'I need to know how to fix this,' she told Kana. Shadow Kana, who was the one who was conscious and able to respond. 'I know you don't like her. I... I don't think I like her either. She tried to kill us! But I'm not going to let you die, and if she dies then so do you, right? I won't let that happen.'
Amu meant it. She'd come here for Kana and she wouldn't leave without her. Definitely not with Kana in two pieces!
Shadow-Kana laughed mentally in response—more of a brittle chortle than an actual laugh. An abrupt change of mood that made Amu want to reach out and hug her. Only half her focus was on the conversation, however. The other half helped hold Kana together, her mental fingers sliding around Shadow-Kana's to hold back the fragments of Kana that still were doing their best to run away. Su was still working on the burns, and that took some of her concentration as well. She didn't have enough left to run her body.
'Shirogane told me the basics,' she told Kana. 'Kana looks like she exploded from the inside. So explain to me. Please. What is a Shadow?'
Because Amu could tell.
She'd never met this 'shadow-self' version of Kana before, but she knew it regardless. It was the deepest, most hidden part of Kana—supposedly?
Except that every time they'd met, she'd also met Kana's 'shadow-self'. It was the deepest, most secret, most private part of Kana... and also the part of her most likely to reach out. She'd figured out why Shadow-Kana felt so immediately familiar—this was the exact part of Kana that she always would link up with. Usually it was deeper, and more an endpoint than the entire thing, but it was there. It really liked her. It was the part of Kana that did. She should have…
She should have noticed. But she hadn't.
Shadow Kana muttered something to herself, then let out a sigh and explained:
'Shadows are you, but you refuse to be them.'
Amu didn't understand. Or, well, she got that part, but...
'So... Shadows are copies? No? They can't be. But you're talking to me. You sound normal, so..?'
'Yes and no,' Shadow-Kana said tiredly, still holding onto herself—clinging to herself—with grim determination. 'Not in the proper sense. If she dies, I'll die. If I die... you heard Shirogane. She might survive, but it won't be much of a life.'
'Then why-'
'Is there any part of you that you refuse to admit?' Shadow-Kana asked her in turn. 'Something you'd go through hell not to tell to anyone?'
Amu wasn't sure how to respond to that, and was relieved when Shadow-Kana continued explaining a moment later:
'It's... look.' Her mental image shrugged. 'A Shadow is... they're you. Just you from a different perspective. And no, I'm not going into detail on this. This feels a hell of a lot different than I imagined it would when Mom was explaining. But they're you, not an evil twin or whatever. I'm her true self. Or truthful self, at least, like Shirogane said. We're still the same person.'
'But she... you don't seem alike?' Amu pointed out hesitantly. 'She seemed less... well... sane.'
'I'm pretty sure it's weird that I'm this sane after being cut in half,' Kana countered. 'And I think that's mostly 'cause I can see how my own mind works. So I can keep it together, regardless of what she says. That's... not how shadows usually function. Even so, she didn't actually get around to denying me properly. Not in a way that would release the limits of being her shadow.'
'So you're…' Amu wondered. 'Like a chara, then? Since they're still linked to me, I mean?'
'Yes,' said Kana flatly, then flinched as if burned by the admission—forcing herself to hold back from saying anything else by sheer force of will. 'And Amu-chan, I think I'm starting to get how you work. It's easier to tell when I'm like this.'
'...what?' Was that important?
'You're a shadow,' Kana answered slowly; haltingly, like she was doing something wrong just by speaking those words aloud. 'I don't know why it didn't click before. It should have. You're a shadow, without a persona keeping you locked away from the world. Your charas are to you, like the other Kana is to me. It shouldn't work that way at all. But you... I think... when we talk like this...'
She trailed off for a moment. Amu waited patiently, if curiously, not wanting to interrupt as Kana searched for the right words.
'Never mind,' Shadow-Kana eventually said, sounding embarrassed all of a sudden. 'I have no idea what I'm talking about. It can't work that way. Saving Kana... right.' She let out a puff of air. 'If you had an isolation chamber you could put her in, she'd be fine after a month or so. Might lose her telepathy, if she doesn't manage to accept me, but she'd still be...' She hesitated. 'She'd still be Kana. It's harder to break someone's mind than you think, so long as they still have a brain.'
But she might not like Amu anymore. Was that what her shadow-self was implying?
'...maybe?' Shadow-Kana admitted weakly in response, a moment later. 'It's hard to say without... I mean I like you and I don't really want to integrate her at all because... because... I want to go home,' she said finally, sounding about ready to cry. 'I just want to go home.'
And there it was. That was what Amu had been afraid of. That was what Kana didn't want to acknowledge or admit to.
Kana's mother was a piece of work; a monster, judging from her memories, worse than any of the people Amu had met—and often fought—in Easter. The same people who'd ruined her trust in adults. Being worse than that… that took some doing!
But unlike Utau's so-called stepfather, Kana's mother genuinely loved her. She couldn't blame her friend for wanting to go home… could she? Definitely not. And if Shirogane—no, if her own eyes were still working right, then the Kana she was talking to was just a single part of Kana as a whole. Amu wouldn't, couldn't protest that.
But that didn't mean she knew what to say.
'You're… allowed to want your mother,' Amu tried, gaining speed as she spoke. It came out a little stilted. 'It's okay. She… I'd be scared if mine was like that, Kana. But I can't imagine ever not wanting to go home. Not even if I couldn't.'
'But I could!' Shadow-Kana insisted.
'You could,' Amu acknowledged. It was an option. Technically.
Shadow-Kana already knew what she was going to say. She laughed again, this time a broken, unhappy sound that tore at Amu's heart. It hurt. Amu could tell that it hurt. It was just… there wasn't enough time…
'I just don't think I'd like you if you did,' she said.
Kana shuddered. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Amu wondered what this looked like to Utau. She had to try to teach her. Once she was done feeling like a louse.
'What if you come with me?' she asked, on instinct. 'Once all of this is over? I can't promise your mother back. But I can-' She sent Kana images. Playing with her sister. Mom, baking cookies with her. All… all the things that Kana couldn't have, that she missed so much, but- 'Please?' she begged. 'Kana? I know you'd like it. And mom would love you, honest.'
'That's a lie,' Kana pointed out. 'She's scared of me.'
That might be true, but…
'And Naomi won't allow it,' Shadow-Kana said. 'But... Naomi isn't here. The part of me that cares what she thinks is on the floor. The other Scavengers got captured. It's just me and Yui now.' She smiled slightly. 'Are you trying to broker a compromise?'
Amu smiled back at her, feeling a little silly all of a sudden.
'Is it working?'
Shadow-Kana shook her head in response, not that she could see it; a twinkle of humour present in her thoughts regardless. She liked Amu's idea. Would it help at all, was the question? She'd leave the question of 'convincing Mom' for another day.
'Do you think you could join back with Other Kana if she agrees to try it?' Amu asked. 'I know there's Yui and the others, but… there's got to be another way. I have a lot of friends. We saved Utau already, and she was… nearly as badly off! There's got to be an option that doesn't need you to sacrifice yourself. Right? …is that a decent compromise?'
'Don't quit your day job,' Kana joked back at Amu. 'Fine. Fine. If she agrees to. If all you want is to stabilise her, then we just have to keep doing what we're doing. It might take half an hour, but she should at least wake up, and then she'll be able to talk.'
'And then you can come home with me?' Amu asked her hopefully.
'...that'll be up to her,' Shadow-Kana answered.
⁂
"Mom studies souls," Shadow-Kana said. "What makes us people. Why we work the way we do. The difference between sorcerers and ordinary people—stuff like that."
They'd patched up Kana's wounds, and now they were waiting for her to wake up so they could feed her. She wasn't precisely starving, but there was—according to Kana—nothing here to eat, and she'd gone hungry for several days.
Her Shadow mostly seemed nervous. She absolutely, one hundred percent didn't want to fight against Kana, a fact that still made Shirogane look like she'd swallowed a coffee-scented pineapple. Kana's mind was starting to congeal a little, Amu thought, so maybe she'd wake up soon?
Not that Amu was an expert.
And so, lacking any other options, Shadow-Kana was explaining herself.
"...she's also why I know how shadows work," she said. "I'm her 'true self', all that jazz. It's sort of obvious from this side, but I've known for years."
Shirogane nodded.
"I did wonder," she said. "What would happen if someone already knew. I take it she still doesn't accept you."
Yes, that had been fairly obvious- Amu thought.
"Accept that I'm part of her?" Kana said. "Sure. Accept that I should be? Nope." She sighed, running a hand along the back of her head. "Probably 'cause of… all the stuff we can do. I'm a little saner than the usual shadow, because I can see the flaws and dead ends and work around them. Kana makes up for it, by being a little…"
"Homicidal?" Utau offered.
"...unfortunately," Shadow-Kana agreed. "We're bad at lying to ourselves. Not so bad at… yeah. That."
A shiver ran through Kana's body, bringing them all up short. Amu stared at her for a while, but a full minute passed and nothing more happened. More of her mind had joined up, however. There was a rapid ping-pong of pulses passing between Kana and her shadow, nothing so complicated as a thought, but it seemed to be giving her a scaffolding.
Could she… should she? Amu gave in, and patted Kana's hair a little. The others obligingly didn't notice. The conversation continued.
"Shadows are supposed to be rejected," Shirogane said. "It's a part of how they're made."
A pause.
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"No."
Shadow-Kana glowered at Shirogane, and then rolled her eyes. "Then I'll do it. Like I care to keep their secrets, seriously. Shadows are the part of you that you reject—I'm pretty sure you know that. Yeah? I sure do. But they're also a lot more. Every part that isn't conscious, if you look at it the right way. Lots and lots of stuff, most not really shadow-related. Mom studies souls, so she knows just where to cut them to get pieces that do what you want."
Kana shivered again as she spoke, in part because the remnants of her burns still ached, and in part because her thoughts kept misbehaving. This time they didn't pay it as much mind.
Was- what Kana had said- also what she'd done to herself? …no, to the shadows she'd found? What Amu could see of her mind suggested that it was. The unconscious Kana's mind was still messed up, but there were all sorts of… other pieces. Flecks of burning gold, or oily ashes…
Shadow-Kana removed each one carefully as soon as she noticed, and Amu tried to follow her lead, but she was mostly relegated to observer. Still. Between Amu and Kana's shadow-self, they were keeping her from… dying. Kana wasn't healed. Couldn't heal, Amu suspected, unless the two of them fused. Definitely couldn't live outside this place.
According to Shadow-Kana it should have been possible for her to leave, except that her shadow-self would stay behind. Normally that would be fine—physically separating them didn't mean tearing their mind in half, and might in fact help them reintegrate—but right now Shadow-Kana was one of the two people keeping Kana from a bad case of permanent coma.
'Apathy syndrome,' she'd called it.
The problem was, Kana genuinely seemed to think she'd be better off with a gigantic Shadow-Kana-sized hole in her. Amu didn't know what to say about that. Nobody—nobody she knew—would have called that line of thinking sane. But Kana didn't feel sane. Defining 'sane' as 'not literally falling apart'.
"-and this whole thing," Shadow-Kana said. "You reject your shadow, then have a fight with it! Accept it, maybe. Suddenly, great powers! Or great embarrassment, right? Because the only way you can properly reject something like me is if someone's there to see it, and did I forget to mention they're the parts of you that you dislike? Mom certainly didn't. That's why she got so excited when I learned to mind-control people."
Shirogane frowned at that. "There's always an audience," she said. "Even if no one wants to see it."
"Sure, there has to be! Mom thought I'd be able to make someone 'reject' a specific part of them. To make a specific power, or maybe just make them controllable," Shadow-Kana said. "Not that it ever worked. You sound like you've experience. Seen this before?"
"Nothing... precisely like this, no," Shirogane replied cautiously. "Although I know a few people who have, ah-" She waved one hand at the unconscious Kana in a vague gesture, before letting it fall back to her side again. "-gone through something like this."
"Of course you have," Shadow-Kana said, nodding to herself. "Otherwise you wouldn't be a Blank."
Shirogane paused at that.
"And what, exactly, is a 'blank'?" she asked.
"Someone like you," Shadow-Kana said dismissively. "I bet magic barely works on you. Right? And stuff like contracts, curses, anything that'd touch your mind... I bet you don't even know that's possible. Because..." She trailed off, her eyebrows raising in surprise as Shirogane nodded along to her words.
"I believe I can see where you're going," Shirogane said. "We'd noticed. I have comrades. Sometimes we fought beings that induced fear or temporary insanity, but it had little effect on me. If any. I had thought that was simply my inherent rationality."
The girl rolled her eyes at those last words. "No. You're just immune. Which means, if anyone from that side of the block ever even noticed you, they'd have stayed away. You can't sign contracts, so there's no chance they'd try to trade. And people like you are too scary to cross." She blinked at Shirogane's suddenly slightly pensive expression.
Kana moaned in her sleep. Simultaneously, Amu felt her mind light up from one end to the other, pain signals finally making it through. There was no damage to her body anymore, but…
"She's about to wake up," Amu said.
Her shadow grimaced. "...then I'll make this fast. Amu, Kana was trying to kill me so she could take me apart. I told you, she's not actually suicidal. I don't know what you've planned, but- don't start with that. We took a phoenix apart, bet you anything she thought it'd work better on me. Also, um… I'll try to keep myself together, but…"
"I'm not letting her hurt you," Amu insisted.
Shirogane, for some reason, pinched her nose.
Amu didn't get a chance to ask for the reason, as Second Kana had woken up properly, and was glaring daggers at the Shadow.
At least they were metaphorical daggers, though the Shadow Kana had taken the reasonable precaution of moving so that the Blank was between them.
"You let me wake up, huh?" It sounded as bitter as her thoughts felt, resting in Amu's hands.
Shadow Kana shook her head, offended by the question and frowning past Shirogane. "That isn't the sort of person we want to be. Of course we did. You're the one that tried to kill me."
"I tried to take you apart," Kana countered, as though that was an improvement. "I was trying to make myself better. It should be possible. I did it with the damn phoenix. That turned out to be a poor idea." she finished tiredly, her breathing a little less ragged than it had been when she woke. "Amu, don't stop whatever it is you're doing. I'm starting to feel normal again."
Amu decided not to mention that Shadow-Kana was doing most of it.
"Normal… we haven't been normal in a long time, Me."
Amu hesitated, scolded herself for hesitating again, then stopped herself as Utau nudged her and nodded at Shirogane.
Who seemed to think that the two Kana's arguing was a positive? Or at least she wasn't objecting to the Shadow Kana using her as a safety barrier to throw her comments from. This would be a lot easier if she could just tell what the detective wanted, rather than guessing.
"Let me guess, 'normal' would be running back to Mom?"
"You know that isn't what I meant." Shadow-Kana groaned. "-but it's not like she would hurt us if we did!"
"No?" Second Kana retorted with a snarl, her eyes flaring red for a moment. "Do you really think that?"
"Yes!" Shadow-Kana nearly shouted back at her—though her expression faltered slightly at that, the anger on her face twisting into a sadder expression. "Because she could have. Remember? She let us escape instead of letting us get hurt. She'd still take us back, if we asked her to."
Second Kana went silent, staring at the ground; unwilling or unable to meet First Kana's gaze any longer. Shadow-Kana continued speaking regardless.
"She loves us," Shadow-Kana insisted. "She loves Yui-neechan, she loves us, and she's why there were always convenient, nearly unprotected stockpiles of Naomi and Aoi's drugs that we could steal. So we wouldn't be at risk while doing it. If she wanted to hurt us she already would've. But instead she loves us; she gives us pretty clothes and her time and- and everything- s-she let us kill her colleagues so we'd be safe..."
Shadow-Kana trailed off, sniffling quietly as tears dripped down her cheeks while Second Kana glared in disgust.
'I want to go home.'
The thought wasn't so much a whisper as an idea. An aching desire that had nowhere else to go but inside Kana's mind; yet inside that mind it ran into Amu, who was still holding her together.
'I want to go home!'
Second Kana growled, nearly launching herself at her shadow, for no apparent reason so far as Shirogane and Utau were concerned. Utau at least could feel her emotions—but Kana's emotions had been such a whirlpool the entire evening, Amu wouldn't blame her if she tried to tune them out. Amu, fortunately, couldn't technically feel them. She could tell what they were—yes, and absolutely—but that wasn't quite the same thing.
'Don't do it!' Amu warned, before Shirogane was forced to hold her back.
She wasn't sure to what degree the 'Kana' she was looking at cared about her opinion. But she stopped moving, at least. After a moment she settled back, slumping down.
Amu took a chance, and dived into the mess of Kana's thoughts.
She had to know.
…
It hurt. To see someone so close to her be happy while she wasn't. To be happy for her while Kana wasn't. To be so sure that she'd never see her family again, that she was a terrible person for wanting to. It wasn't just her mother and her sister. She'd had a father as well, who might or might not also be a monster. She'd had an aunt, who definitely was.
A father who'd let her ride his shoulders and named her 'Kana'. The same aunt who'd taught her to read, and who always had a piece of candy in her pocket, until the day her parents would no longer let her visit.
It hurt more, to know she'd be an awful person for returning.
…
Except…
…
Was it even possible to talk to Kana? Amu had to assume it was. There was a wall in Kana's mind. Even as broken-down as she was, she was holding her shadow-self at a distance. If she didn't—if Kana just fully relaxed, which wasn't the same thing as being unconscious—then Amu thought they'd have fused back together by now. Maybe that was wishful thinking.
Maybe it wasn't.
"Shirogane…" she said, looking above Kana at the stranger. She was taking a risk here. "Do you think it's wrong of Kana to want to go home?"
It took a moment. Shirogane shifted, narrowing her eyes at Amu for a moment.
"To want to go home?" she stressed. "No. To actually do it?" She hesitated. "Not even that. It's the right decision not to, from what I have heard, and a mature one. Perhaps overly so."
Now it was Kana's turn to shift, shrinking slightly in on herself. Shirogane finished.
"You're a human being, and a child. You're allowed to want to go home."
The wall in Kana's mind trembled at her words, the jagged pieces of it briefly aligning themselves into a more coherent whole—and then Kana held her shadow-self apart. Again.
"That's not very fair, Amu-chan," said Second Kana. Her voice was soft, almost broken, but still loud enough that the others could hear it. "How am I supposed to..?"
To... what? Fight? Shout at them? Complain that they'd overheard all her secrets?
Yes, all of that. But Kana didn't want to fight her. And even if she were to try...
"You're not," Amu said. "You'd just hate yourself more," she said, propelling a surge of calm and acceptance into Kana's subconscious. "You know what always makes me feel better?" she asked out loud.
"Maybe..?" Kana hazarded.
"Food," Amu declared. "We both need to calm down, and some cake sounds about right. What about you?" She looked at Shirogane questioningly.
"...tapioca pudding?" Shirogane replied after a few seconds of silence; a brief expression of amusement flickering across her face at the absurdity of the situation they were in. "My father made some occasionally."
"Utau?" Amu prodded.
Utau stared at the three of them for a few seconds before blinking quietly and tilting her head to one side. "...salt ramen?" she offered hesitantly.
Amu clapped her hands together, selecting absurdity. "Salt chocolate ramen pudding it is, then. Who's hungry?"
Kana's stomach rumbled.
⁂
Strawberry chocolate cake was served. With chocolate milk, because in Kana's opinion—either one—you could never have such a thing as too much chocolate. And in Ran's opinion everything was better with strawberries on top! So, of course, chocolate strawberry cake was the obvious solution.
Calming down was the solution, and Amu let Su take over for a little while. The girl was, after all, unflappable.
One of the desks of the half-melted Abandoned Laboratory (tm) (subtitles provided by Su) was repurposed into a table (subtitle: thanks Yui). Paper plates, paper cups and plastic knives were procured from seemingly nowhere (subtitle: oh wait, literally nowhere) and shortly thereafter—as Utau watched with a mixture of bemusement and fond exasperation—Amu quietly slipped back into her own body, relaxed and ready to do nothing more strenuous than eat cake with her friends.
Right…
Well, it wasn't like she'd ever gone away. Ran and Su weren't different people, they were more like... different personalities.
Which was how she tried explaining that to Kana, sitting with one Kana to her left, Utau to her right, and the second Kana to the right of Utau. Shirogane watched their tea party with something like befuddlement, having been given a big plate of pudding to snack on.
The fight hadn't been averted, but it was… on hold.
"But I don't act like her," Kana pointed out between bites of her cake. "And you're not like Su. Very much not Su. ...dunno about Ran."
"I think that makes her more likely to be right," Amu countered. "Besides, my eyes are glowy too. See?"
Really, 'being a shadow' helped make sense of a whole lot of weird situations. Not, Amu admitted, that she had any idea what the claim was supposed to imply—other than having yellow, glowy eyes. It made sense of that at least.
She nibbled her cake.
Kana wasn't nibbling. Kana was still starving, and had devoured three slices of cake before Utau had even finished her first; two cups of milk before Amu had even filled hers; and was halfway through a fourth slice now.
She wasn't sure if she should count Shadow Kana's slices separately, but enough questions had been raised about what the two actually were for her to leave that question well enough alone.
Amu pursed her lips at the thought, frowning thoughtfully as she cut her own cake into tiny, bite-sized pieces and let the strawberry sauce run all over them. Then she shrugged helplessly and leaned back in her seat, stabbing a piece of strawberry cake with a plastic knife and putting it in her mouth before asking Utau how her cake was doing.
"Very... salty," Utau replied after a few seconds. "I don't think I've ever had ramen-flavoured chocolate before."
"That's because it's made with ramen," Amu informed her, grinning at Utau's dumbfounded expression. "Just like regular chocolate is made from beans. I don't know what kind of ramen this is, though..." she added, prodding the unknown fluffy substance dubiously with one plastic knife before cutting herself a bite-sized piece. "But Kana needed something more nutritious. Right, Kana?"
"...yeah," Kana said after a few seconds of hesitation—hiding an uncomfortable flinch at the words. "It's good." She coughed and sat up straighter. "I..."
Amu sighed. "You're thinking too much," she told Kana quietly. "I just want you to be happy. So please, talk to us. I want all sides of you to be happy."
'If you absolutely have to hurt yourself, at least tell us why?'
"I'll try," Kana replied after a moment or so; and this time Amu was certain there was no strain on her at all. She was, for now, in balance.
It was a balance that involved Amu holding Kana upright, which she couldn't do forever. But that was still a sort of balance.
⁂
"Mom studies souls," Kana repeated, for the third time that day. "What makes us people, but it's also what lets magic work. Like what you call psionics?" She looked questioningly at Amu, who shrugged at her. "What the two of us can use? It's one type of magic, but there are a lot of others.
"Because of that... well, my family is secretive about a lot of things," Kana continued after a few seconds of thought. "And because I ran away when I was ten... or was I eleven?" She frowned, scratching her chin thoughtfully with one finger before giving up and continuing on. "Because I left when I was young, there's a lot she couldn't tell me. Traditionally, apparently, kids aren't told anything at all until they're twelve. But the thing is..." Kana drew a deep breath.
"Mom did the same thing," she said. "Ran away from home, I mean. Because her family is nuts, and she was scared of raising me where they could find us. The only one who knows where she lives is Aunt Noriko, and Mom hasn't let her visit since... for years. I'm not sure." Kana grimaced slightly. "Mom thinks they're evil madmen. Says it all, don't you think?"
She waved her hands around at the ruins of Manticore around them as she spoke—at the ruined laboratory full of computers and dead screens and security cameras everywhere, the surgical tools in one corner, the molten scrap of child-sized cages stuffed into a corner—before grimacing slightly at the sight of Amu's stricken face and hastily resuming her explanation.
"She started studying psionics, because... Amu, have you ever pushed so hard you've gotten tired? Tried to do something you couldn't, without realising you couldn't?" Kana looked expectantly at Amu, who hesitated for a moment or so before nodding once at her.
"Of course." Obviously?
"If you do that with ordinary magic, you get brain damage," Shadow-Kana supplied. "Serious brain damage. Even if it's only once. It doesn't happen to persona users, like..." She hesitated, looking at Shirogane. "...you? I doubt I'm getting one from this absurdity."
Kana and Shadow-Kana were both trying to pretend the other didn't exist. That didn't stop them completing each other's sentences.
"I see," Shirogane replied, shaking her head. "I'd never heard."
"Getting back to mom, her self-declared life's work was to figure out why persona users don't hurt themselves by using their power. And then Manticore offered to let her work with psionics, which..." Kana hesitated, glancing at Shirogane. Being a Kana, somebody forged on.
"Which are kinda just better at everything," Shadow-Kana said. "Betcha you can just do a few tricks. Right? Two or three at most. They're strong, but you've got what might as well be a spell list. There's no way you can do anything offensive other than that lightning. Thing is though, lightning works on most things. Especially if you're also really hard to hurt."
Shirogane nodded, a slight smile playing on her lips.
"But psions are more... general," Kana continued, a hint of pride seeping into her voice as she spoke. "'Cause we're not leveraging fixed archetypes. We don't use psionics, we are the psionics. ...and unlike sorcerers like mom, using it doesn't hurt us." She held up one finger for emphasis. "Which means we can just sorta... make shit up on the spot. There's no fixed structure."
'Is that why you practically flayed yourself?' Amu asked—a private whisper inside their heads to keep Shirogane from overhearing. 'Because you were trying to-'
Kana shook her head slightly at Amu's words, sending a trickle of denial through their link and continuing on regardless. 'Accident. Kinda. I saw my shadow and I kinda just-'
'How!? And why!?'
Kana held her head against an apparent headache. More words tried to make their way out of her mouth, from 'everything she said was a lie!' to 'it wasn't my fault'—before finally settling on nothing at all. With a little help from Amu. Kana's self-control was, bluntly, shot—they were substituting for it by mind-controlling her. Amu didn't think she even realised what she was doing half the time.
But Amu was more than willing to help her along.
She just sort of hoped the story would lead to some kind of resolution.
⁂
It mainly seemed to lead to exposition.
"Psionics are a new thing," Kana said, after scarfing down a bit more 'cake'. "They started popping up a bit less than a decade ago, for no obvious reason at all. 'least, none that mom or Manticore has heard about. It's worldwide, but she says there are more in Europe and Japan. Particularly Japan. Hence Manticore.
"I don't really know what it was like at first. I've heard people say their job is to keep Japan safe from psionics, but I don't know when that turned into keeping kids in cages. Probably after they found out what psionics can do."
"Mind control?" Amu asked.
"Yeah. No. That's just me, and mom's not scared of me. Anyhow... that was later. It's more stuff like..." She waved one hand vaguely towards Shirogane before taking a bite out of another piece of cake and continuing on while chewing.
She was definitely just trying to avoid the point.
"Flamethrowers," she got out between the crumbs, swallowing and gesturing vaguely upwards with one hand. "Teleporting knives into people. Kids that move so fast, they might as well be teleporting. And you, Amu. I saw you on TV, tearing demons to pieces with your mind. You know that'd be scary, yeah? 'cause, um. We saw that, and then I thought, 'Wow. I had lunch with that girl, and she didn't murder me.'" Kana sagged. "And the speedster? That's my sister's friend, Yuna. She's… really nice. Or she was, the last time I saw her," she said glumly. "Three years ago. Her brother still thinks she's alive."
'...because I told him,' Kana told her. 'Don't tell anyone. He might get disappeared as well.'
Amu blinked, and then blinked again as she tried to make the dots line up. Kana saw the horror in her mind and shook her head—a brief rueful smile flickering across her face as she did so.
"I still can't believe Naomi thought you might be dangerous," she said quietly, mostly to herself, a hint of amused incredulity colouring her voice. "I wanted to find you in the hospital, Amu. Never think I didn't. Naomi's the one who decided... you're probably..."
'...obviously not a plant from Manticore,' she continued silently, making Amu shiver briefly as she completed that sentence inside her mind, feeling the truth of it from Kana's mind. 'You're not the problem.'
"...Kana," Amu started.
"Yeah?" Both of them answered.
Amu paused.
"You started calling me Amu again," she finally pointed out. Shadow-Kana perked up a little. "Is that…"
"I'm feeling more like myself, yeah. I guess." Kana shivered. "Just don't stop holding on to me, please? Um." She glanced down at her hands, which weren't in contact with Amu at all, and pointedly didn't look at her Shadow. After a moment, she tentatively stretched out some fingers in Amu's direction. Amu gratefully let herself touch them.
Kana shivered a little, but her mind felt a lot more… manageable.
Shirogane held up a hand, interrupting them with a quiet cough.
"I've also seen the footage," she said gently. "Of Hinamori-san defeating the demons. I expect that describes a large fraction of the planet now. Hinamori-san, you're walking around with a loaded gun at all times. I shouldn't need to explain why that would frighten people."
Amu considered that for a few seconds and then nodded silently in agreement. Utau slipped a hand around Amu's shoulders as she did so.
Shirogane continued. "Unlike what many people think, there is no absolute rule against minors handling weapons in our country," she explained calmly, her tone reassuringly neutral. "But if they do so, it must be for a good reason—usually out of necessity—and in addition they must be suitably trained. In your case no such training officially exists, as yet, but you should expect to hear from someone soon. I don't necessarily think you should worry. If you've gone this long without harming anyone, then..." Shirogane shrugged, letting the sentence trail off as she did so. "They can't afford to look bad to the public. That's going to include this Manticore.
"Given your powers—and your personality—if it were up to me I'd allow an exception in your case." Shirogane continued on, her words still measured and calm in spite of the topic. "That may not be the case for many people less experienced with violence, which is a point I imagine is being discussed at higher levels of government right now. It does not surprise me that an organisation meant to preempt the issue already exists. However, given what I have heard of it thus far..."
Shirogane leaned forward in her seat slightly as she continued speaking; a frown on her face and her voice growing sharper by degrees. "I cannot help but find myself disapproving."
'That's something,' Amu heard Kana think. 'Even if it's not helpful at all...'
"Anyway," Kana said aloud. "Manticore was already nasty. And then Mom tried to teach Yui magic, and it all went..."
"Pear-shaped?" Utau suggested when Kana trailed off again, her words causing Amu to smile briefly. Only briefly.
"Badly," Kana said. "Really badly. I don't really want to talk 'bout it. Is that okay? Please?"
"Sure," Amu said softly, tightening her grip on Kana's hand again. "And I'd rather talk about you."
"...don't we have a dragon to kill or something?" Kana asked after a few seconds of silence.
Amu gave her an unhappy look, and Kana sighed heavily in response, closing her eyes for a second or two.
"Yui-chan is right here," she said. "That's her power. Making places. Turning herself into places, when she takes it too far. It's why I can't let her sleep on her own… well, that and the monsters from her nightmares, like…" She gestured uncomfortably at the room around them. "These. Sometimes I'm in them as well. Those are the worst. But I've never seen her this… spread out. Somewhere in here there'll still be that little girl… if we can find her."
"Kana," Amu said. "About your Shadow-self..."
Kana let out a bitter chuckle.
"Mom and her 'true self' bullshit," she replied quietly; a sad smile flickering across her face as she spoke, before it melted away into something resembling disgust. "My shadow wants to give up on Yui-chan, Amu. All these years, all that fighting, and she wants to just give up and go home. Like nothing's ever changed. Like I don't know Mom is just as bad as my grandpa."
Shadow Kana started to speak up in protest, a building rage that barely stopped at Amu's slightly panicked mental nudge.
"...would you ever do that?" Amu asked after a second or so, a hint of a tremor in her voice as she spoke that vanished under a wave of calm. Courtesy of Ran.
'Of course not.'
Kana closed her eyes with a grimace at Amu's distress, and let out a shuddering breath before answering. "Never," she said firmly. "Not in a million years. I'll find her. Even if it takes a thousand years. She won't die while she's here. She just isn't… her."
'Then does it matter if there's still a part of you that wants to?' Amu wanted to ask. 'That Shadow-Kana looks so wrong to you. She's still you. Do you really have to kill her?'
The answer was instant, even if Kana didn't want it to be: Yes. Yes, she did. She couldn't. But she did.
Amu opened her mouth to protest, only to find herself interrupted by Utau.
"And would accepting her change you?" Utau asked quietly—a slightly sad smile on her face, Iru scratching her neck as she spoke. "Would accepting her mean you'd go back to your mother? Would it make you a different person than the one Amu seems to love?"
Utau gestured at Kana as she spoke—one hand towards the girl, the other resting on Amu's shoulder; warm and comforting and unwavering—her voice growing firmer by the second.
"Or would you still be the same person you were last week, but with a new perspective on who you could be?" Utau challenged. "Is that such a bad thing? If you're anything like me…" Utau trailed off at those last words, her expression twisting into something uncomfortable for a split-second before she forced it back into neutrality again. "-you'll do the right thing regardless, once you know."
Utau clenched Amu's hand, trembling slightly.
"...no," Kana said. "No, I don't suppose it would." She sighed. "I've tried being a demon. If you've got a better idea… I guess I can try being me."
= = =
And then what?
There's no huge question of whether or not she'll pull herself together. You'd need to be insane to not want that, and Kana has recovered… sufficiently. There's still a question of on what terms, which will be the final vote of this arc. Yui still needs rescue, but in typical Persona form she'll be fine for now; no-one ever worried people would starve to death while they were searching for them. Which is odd, now I think of it.
A few options present themselves. Note that these select not just Kana's living situation, but how the next scene plays out; it'll work in a way that makes this happen.
[ ] Amu's bid.
- Amu wants to take Kana home, because of course she does. Hopefully Kana will be more welcome than a certain catboy. She isn't repeating her mistake of hiding a boarder, but she doesn't want to let Kana out of sight.
- This was Amu's first idea for a compromise, and something along these lines would have the best impact on her mentality.
- Obvious flaw: Kana is a confessed murderer, Naoto will want to do something about that.
- The primary story effect is she'll be around a lot, although it'll be some time before she's active in any non-fluff manner other than perhaps hunting down Yui. Naoto would visit to keep an eye on her.
[ ] Naoto's bid.
- The twelve-year-old being a "self-confessed murderer" is a big concern, but so is everything she's heard tonight, and Naoto isn't going to march Kana up to the nearest police station. For… a number of reasons. She might, however, want to sit on her. Yes—that makes two people who'd quite like Kana to live with them, if for very different reasons.
- There's a part of Kana who really wants someone older to take charge. There are also large parts of Kana that would object violently to this. It depends a lot on how competent Naoto is; fortunately, she is highly competent.
- Obvious flaw: Kana doesn't want to.
- The primary story effect is it'll pull in the rest of the investigation crew a great deal faster, and possibly the Kirijo group as well. At a distance, however; Naoto isn't likely to ask Amu for help in any normal situation.
- Although chances are she'll visit to introduce herself as Ami's teacher. Because someone has to babysit her.
[ ] Utau's bid.
- Look, Kana mostly needs someone with a vague idea of what she's been going through.
- This person doesn't exist, but Utau thinks she has a shot. And has connections enough to help Kana rent an apartment of her own, to let her keep some distance if that's what she wants. It's not clear that she does, but it would prevent a great deal of potential fallout.
- Obvious flaw: Kana really shouldn't be on her own. Amu is willing to be a 24/7 bodyguard, so why are we leaving her to herself? She can't even cook well!
- Kana would like the idea at first, but quickly mess up. She never has lived on her own, and isn't the type to do well. In practice it devolves to Amu's bid, slightly delayed. Or Naoto's. Depends.
- The primary story effect is a mildly depressed Kana, who might realise she's not as grown up as she thinks.
[ ] Kana's bid.
- Kana is entirely capable of running away and handling herself, or at least she thinks she is. She can escape. Probably. And then she can… visit Amu while hunting down Yui? She isn't exactly sure what her plan is.
- She'd be creaking at the seams. Not much hope of a clean reintegration if this is the best she can come up with.
- Too many flaws to mention. I don't think anyone will go for this.
- The primary story effect is… do you want a tragedy? Look, I'm including this because I feel she should get a say. Not because her idea is a good one.
[ ] Write-in
- You don't have to write-in. Directly expanding on one of the canned options is mostly pointless; any details you add would likely come up as in-story votes regardless. Though you can if you want, or to propose something very different.
Vote closed
Hibiki
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
I was probably meant to be working on the final arc update for the last hour, but it's late and I worked on it earlier. You get this instead.
= = =
He dropped the coin ten times, recording each outcome.
Then, just to make sure, he tried it another ten times.
But the result was always the same.
"The probability is definitely..."
Kuze Hibiki's fingers trembled slightly.
"...might as well be zero. There's no doubt about it."
Hibiki, who was in his third year of high school, held his face in his hands. His fingers ran up and down, as if he were trying to wipe the fatigue from his brow.
"This is ridiculous."
Thirty-something drops. Thirty times the coin had landed on its edge, a feat that was nearly impossible according to the law of large numbers. Or common sense.
He'd never heard of anyone's luck being this good. Nor had he kept in contact with a demon who could have granted him such an ability. Or who would have, without prompting. A trickster's prank, then?
"No way. Not even him."
"Playing with coins?" Io's voice cut through Hibiki's thoughts, causing him to flinch.
"A-Ah, you startled me."
"Sorry." The girl named Io smiled and sat down beside Hibiki, who put the coin back in his pocket and glanced around the rest of the library. It was mostly empty, giving them a rare moment of privacy. Did Io spend a lot of time in libraries? He didn't think so.
"You seem tired," she said.
"Do I?"
"Yeah. You're really pale."
"I'm okay." Hibiki forced a smile. This wasn't his version of Io. He had to keep that in mind, or his heart would leap out of his chest. "So, what brings you here?"
"I just saw you and wanted to say hello." Io looked a little embarrassed as she explained herself.
"Ah, that's... fine," he said. Had Io always been so outgoing? Probably. "But why did you come over here in the first place?"
"Ah, um... I just wanted to get away for a bit." Io put her hands behind her neck, as if trying to find the right words. "Thinking about... stuff. About my parents. So, I went to a place where no one else would bother me."
"Is that right?"
"Yes, it is." She seemed like she was struggling with something, and after a short pause, continued. "I was looking for a book, and..."
Hibiki looked around, then down at the table, at the one he'd been reading. Statistics for Beginners.
"I thought about asking for your help, but then you started looking all depressed."
"That's..." Hibiki was a bit at a loss.
"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?" Io asked. "Maybe I can help. It might feel better to talk to someone about it."
Hibiki's head snapped up. "Huh?"
"You're worried, aren't you?"
Yes... well, he was, but...
"About this whole thing with the demons, right?" Io asked hurriedly. "The dead kids? I heard your cousin's studying there. In that school, I mean." She giggled nervously, but it sounded more like a cough. "It's... worrying."
Hibiki felt a bit uncomfortable. "Yeah. Nitta-san... why are you here? I mean. In the library. What book was it you were looking for? Maybe I can help."
"Um... Well, I'm not actually sure." Io's face grew red. "Something on... demons, maybe."
"D-Demons?"
"Yeah." Io nodded. "I've been thinking. This is probably something I should look into, too. Demons. Theology. Something on... Lugh?" She gave him a quick glance, then lowered her gaze, seemingly embarrassed.
Hibiki wasn't sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard.
"It's, um... it's not exactly easy to find a good source. Most of the books that have anything on Lugh are pretty vague. And most of the sites are run by nutjobs," she said. "It's all mostly wrong. They're saying that, um, Lugh's a god of light, or something? That's not exactly right, is it? He's a god of... craftsmanship, right? And kingship. And a bunch of other things."
"R-Right," he stammered. "Nitta, why—"
"Anyway, it's not much, but I'm trying to do my research." She laughed nervously. "I know, it sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? And I fixated on Lugh because, because-" She stopped, as if thinking she was talking too much. "I... I'm not really sure."
There was a faint purplish aura around Io's face. That wasn't actually new; there had been different-coloured auras around many of his classmates' heads. He'd thought that it was just a part of his imagination. But it was clearly visible to him now, and it made him want to push.
"Lugh? Specifically Lugh?" he asked. Io beamed, though she didn't meet his eyes.
"It's probably nothing." Io folded her hands on her lap, as if trying to stop them from trembling. "It's just a hunch, really. But, er... yes. Lugh. Does that... matter?"
Hibiki looked around, making sure there was nobody nearby. He then lowered his voice and whispered, "Io. Do you remember-?"
There was no need to specify. He had to ask. Just had to.
"-JPs?" she blurted out.
"You're..."
Io smiled.
"I am, yes."
She said it like she'd said it a million times before. Like it was a common thing. A moment later she'd enveloped him in a tight hug, tears streaming down her cheeks. Hibiki found himself a little choked up himself.
"This is..." Io struggled to speak, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I never thought this would happen. I was so sure that the memory would fade away eventually. I thought I would forget it all. That's what was supposed to happen. Then I thought it was because of Lugh. But you remember too!" She let out a weird, high-pitched giggle, and began sobbing. "You do! You do remember! Haha. Ahahaha."
Hibiki wrapped his arms around her, until her laughter turned into quiet sobs. Then, until the sobs themselves quieted down.
He checked the library. Certainly it was mostly empty. Mostly. But even so...
The librarian gave him an understanding nod.
= = =
He dropped the coin ten times, recording each outcome.
Then, just to make sure, he tried it another ten times.
But the result was always the same.
"The probability is definitely..."
Kuze Hibiki's fingers trembled slightly.
"...might as well be zero. There's no doubt about it."
Hibiki, who was in his third year of high school, held his face in his hands. His fingers ran up and down, as if he were trying to wipe the fatigue from his brow.
"This is ridiculous."
Thirty-something drops. Thirty times the coin had landed on its edge, a feat that was nearly impossible according to the law of large numbers. Or common sense.
He'd never heard of anyone's luck being this good. Nor had he kept in contact with a demon who could have granted him such an ability. Or who would have, without prompting. A trickster's prank, then?
"No way. Not even him."
"Playing with coins?" Io's voice cut through Hibiki's thoughts, causing him to flinch.
"A-Ah, you startled me."
"Sorry." The girl named Io smiled and sat down beside Hibiki, who put the coin back in his pocket and glanced around the rest of the library. It was mostly empty, giving them a rare moment of privacy. Did Io spend a lot of time in libraries? He didn't think so.
"You seem tired," she said.
"Do I?"
"Yeah. You're really pale."
"I'm okay." Hibiki forced a smile. This wasn't his version of Io. He had to keep that in mind, or his heart would leap out of his chest. "So, what brings you here?"
"I just saw you and wanted to say hello." Io looked a little embarrassed as she explained herself.
"Ah, that's... fine," he said. Had Io always been so outgoing? Probably. "But why did you come over here in the first place?"
"Ah, um... I just wanted to get away for a bit." Io put her hands behind her neck, as if trying to find the right words. "Thinking about... stuff. About my parents. So, I went to a place where no one else would bother me."
"Is that right?"
"Yes, it is." She seemed like she was struggling with something, and after a short pause, continued. "I was looking for a book, and..."
Hibiki looked around, then down at the table, at the one he'd been reading. Statistics for Beginners.
"I thought about asking for your help, but then you started looking all depressed."
"That's..." Hibiki was a bit at a loss.
"Do you want to tell me what's bothering you?" Io asked. "Maybe I can help. It might feel better to talk to someone about it."
Hibiki's head snapped up. "Huh?"
"You're worried, aren't you?"
Yes... well, he was, but...
"About this whole thing with the demons, right?" Io asked hurriedly. "The dead kids? I heard your cousin's studying there. In that school, I mean." She giggled nervously, but it sounded more like a cough. "It's... worrying."
Hibiki felt a bit uncomfortable. "Yeah. Nitta-san... why are you here? I mean. In the library. What book was it you were looking for? Maybe I can help."
"Um... Well, I'm not actually sure." Io's face grew red. "Something on... demons, maybe."
"D-Demons?"
"Yeah." Io nodded. "I've been thinking. This is probably something I should look into, too. Demons. Theology. Something on... Lugh?" She gave him a quick glance, then lowered her gaze, seemingly embarrassed.
Hibiki wasn't sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard.
"It's, um... it's not exactly easy to find a good source. Most of the books that have anything on Lugh are pretty vague. And most of the sites are run by nutjobs," she said. "It's all mostly wrong. They're saying that, um, Lugh's a god of light, or something? That's not exactly right, is it? He's a god of... craftsmanship, right? And kingship. And a bunch of other things."
"R-Right," he stammered. "Nitta, why—"
"Anyway, it's not much, but I'm trying to do my research." She laughed nervously. "I know, it sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? And I fixated on Lugh because, because-" She stopped, as if thinking she was talking too much. "I... I'm not really sure."
There was a faint purplish aura around Io's face. That wasn't actually new; there had been different-coloured auras around many of his classmates' heads. He'd thought that it was just a part of his imagination. But it was clearly visible to him now, and it made him want to push.
"Lugh? Specifically Lugh?" he asked. Io beamed, though she didn't meet his eyes.
"It's probably nothing." Io folded her hands on her lap, as if trying to stop them from trembling. "It's just a hunch, really. But, er... yes. Lugh. Does that... matter?"
Hibiki looked around, making sure there was nobody nearby. He then lowered his voice and whispered, "Io. Do you remember-?"
There was no need to specify. He had to ask. Just had to.
"-JPs?" she blurted out.
"You're..."
Io smiled.
"I am, yes."
She said it like she'd said it a million times before. Like it was a common thing. A moment later she'd enveloped him in a tight hug, tears streaming down her cheeks. Hibiki found himself a little choked up himself.
"This is..." Io struggled to speak, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I never thought this would happen. I was so sure that the memory would fade away eventually. I thought I would forget it all. That's what was supposed to happen. Then I thought it was because of Lugh. But you remember too!" She let out a weird, high-pitched giggle, and began sobbing. "You do! You do remember! Haha. Ahahaha."
Hibiki wrapped his arms around her, until her laughter turned into quiet sobs. Then, until the sobs themselves quieted down.
He checked the library. Certainly it was mostly empty. Mostly. But even so...
The librarian gave him an understanding nod.
Last edited:
Chapter 2.13 - Arc End
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
"I've tried being a demon," said Kana guiltily. "If you've got a better idea... I guess I can try being me."
The molten remnants of her attempt at murdering them hissed and crackled as it cooled. It back-lit her, setting the scene for what Utau thought would be one of the stranger conversations she'd ever listened to.
She tried not to react in any visible manner, and failed, clenching Amu's hand again. Maybe trembling a little, because this was all more… real, than any of their normal escapades. X-eggs were…
They were real parts of people. But Utau had, at the time, told herself they weren't.
Or at least she'd tried to.
She'd never- let herself believe- that she was harming anyone.
Except for Amu.
Kana didn't seem to notice, whatever her inner turmoil. Amu had told her the girl tried not to read the mind of anyone but enemies, and Utau was glad to see that that, at least, was true—even if Kana's definition of 'enemy' was far too broad for either her or Iru's liking. Split in half or not. Sane, or not. And yet-
"Hold still, or you won't be anything at all," Shadow-Kana muttered. Kana's expression shifted slightly, a touch of grim amusement flickering across her face. 'So?' she might have said, but didn't.
Amu, being Amu, made a wordless sound of distress in the back of her throat. Amu, also being Amu, didn't pause whatever treatment she was giving Kana.
Therein lay the rub, because the guilt and anguish radiating from the two halves couldn't possibly be fake. Utau would know. She'd felt it as well, after every concert—pushed it down—and nearly drowned in it, before Amu had found her. She'd thought she'd had to, that following Easter's orders was her only choice. Kana had also thought she'd had to. The parallels were far too many, and far too blatant to ignore, and Kana was—well, maybe—twelve. 'A child,' she wanted to say.
It wasn't just the words.
Amu had always come off as older than her years.
Kana did not. Kana came off, especially if you could see her feelings, as someone who was trying to appear in control and older, but who couldn't. Like some of the children she'd worked with when she was still an idol, and Utau might have been one of them—she certainly hadn't been the nicest person at the time. Which meant, she wasn't sure what to say right now.
Mostly because, child or not, she was scared of her.
How had Amu…?
After a long while Shadow-Kana sat back, sighing, and Amu slumped towards Utau with an exhausted yet triumphant look on her face, her shoulders sagging with relief. "Done," Shadow-Kana announced softly. "I couldn't get all of it. We'll need to be careful. But the phoenix is dead, sure enough."
Amu mumbled something unintelligible as Kana straightened, staring at her own shadow with an unreadable expression on her face.
"...thank you," she said eventually, nodding once at Shadow-Kana, who smiled weakly in response. "I guess..."
"Let's just get it over with," Shadow-Kana told her tiredly.
And how was Kana even talking? Her emotions were barely coherent, jumping from guilt to anxiety to impatience with barely a second's pause. Doing several of them simultaneously, in fact. Utau hoped, she really hoped, that Amu knew what she was doing.
Her hand tightened on Amu's again as Shadow-Kana gave them a little wave, turned towards her counterpart, and then evaporated into thin air as the last few pieces of Kana's mind violently slammed together. The girl's back arched before volition drained out of her entirely, leaving her staring blankly at the wall in front of her.
A second passed.
Another.
And a third. Then Kana shook herself awake, blinking rapidly before turning to face the rest of them and smiling hesitantly. "Thank you," she said quietly, a hint of something distant in her voice even as she bowed her head towards them. "All of you." Her eyes remained faintly luminescent, but her emotions had calmed down. "And I'm sorry for..."
Stabbing Amu with mental daggers? Trying to burn Shirogane alive? Nearly going mad? There was a lot to be sorry for-
Utau kicked herself.
"It's okay," Amu said immediately, blissfully ignorant of the fact that it wasn't actually true, not in the slightest—before Kana could finish speaking those words. "I'm just glad you're better now. You are, right? You're okay?" she said hopefully.
Kana thought about that for a moment, and shrugged in response. "...for now?" she offered as an answer. "My head's foggy, and..." She hugged herself, shivering slightly in spite of the sweltering heat from her attempt at killing them. "It doesn't hurt anymore, but..." She shuddered, blinking away tears instead. Her head was full of a mixture of relief, and… even more intense guilt. "It was noisy for so long. It feels weird having my head be so quiet."
Now Utau was starting to feel bad.
"Even so." Kana glanced at Utau again, ducking her head and raising a hand to shield her face. "...I don't know what to do anymore," she said, still staring at the floor below them. "Naomi's been captured. Aoi too, maybe in the same place as Yuna. I couldn't save them. Yui's..." She hesitated again, lowering her hand and looking briefly up at the ceiling above them. "Yui-chan's still somewhere in here." She shivered. "Somewhere," she repeated quietly, half to herself, more a prayer than a statement of fact.
"And your Shadow?" Amu asked quickly.
Disbelief bled into Kana's expression at the question, and she hesitated before replying.
"I'm still here," she said eventually, giving them a smile. "I admitted it, didn't I? I'm just way, way, way too tired to pretend. And I don't want to lose you, Amu, even if that was a mean question. I know why you said it." Kana paused and took a deep breath, calming herself down somewhat before continuing on. "But Yui..." She waved one hand uselessly at their surroundings with an uncomfortable look on her face, turning to look at Shirogane.
Utau let her hand drop.
Kana's emotions had, somehow, simplified. Less guilt, now. Less frustration. More just… raw fear, almost desperation. Only a faint thread of hope underlying all of that. Another set of emotions that she recognised.
"Please, please help me to find her," the young girl pleaded with an intensity that made Utau feel cold in spite of the heat still surrounding them all, her body language shifting from tired and listless to something sharp and raw in an instant; a note of panic in her voice. "Please."
"That is my job," Shirogane replied evenly. For a brief moment a hint of sympathy flickered across the detective's face—which was then replaced by an expression of practised neutrality—before she nodded at Kana. "...Kana-san."
A brief smile flickered across Kana's face at those words, and then it vanished as she slumped slightly in her seat. The girl's body language practically oozed relief as she finally managed to relax, nodding gratefully at Shirogane even as a few stray tears ran down her cheeks.
"Not today, regrettably," Shirogane continued after a short while. "It's become late evening. I still need to get your friends out of here before I do anything else, and I believe you could also do with rest, to recover your balance. Is that alright?"
"...yeah," Kana whispered after a second or so, nodding once and deflating into Amu. She looked years younger than her age. Utau was fairly sure that was just exhaustion finally setting in. "Yeah." She paused, taking another deep breath before speaking again. "Yui will survive. That's right, isn't it? Getting stuck here, in that way... she split into a dozen shadows, not just one, but it should be the same thing... she'll be able to survive it, right? She hasn't been here very long." Kana aimed the question at Shirogane.
"Yes," Shirogane agreed. "There have been cases of people being stranded far longer than a week. A friend of mine had a particularly traumatic experience a few months ago—but she managed to emerge whole and healthy." She shrugged slightly at Kana's uncomfortable glance at the partly melted ruins around them, which had finally stopped glowing—and added; "As did I. I'd never blame a child for their actions in a place like this, or anyone really. You weren't in your right mind."
The guilt bubbled inside of Kana's chest regardless, as did a strong sense of doubt. The girl was too tired to question it, however. The reassurance seemed to be enough for now.
And Utau, once again, kicked herself. It was hard to see the girl in front of her as dangerous.
"Th-thank you," she repeated instead, before looking back at Amu again—a weak smile flickering across her face as she spoke that rapidly faded into something more solemn.
"I shouldn't go home with you," she said quietly. "Love the idea, Amu-chan, but there's no way it's reasonable."
Amu spluttered.
"You've killed people," Shirogane observed neutrally, interrupting before Amu could. "To protect your friends and yourself from a fate worse than death," she continued on, nodding slightly at Kana's uncomfortable flinch, "-but that doesn't mean it's not murder. Is that what you're thinking of? Or your mother, perhaps—she might go after anyone you're close to, if she can?"
"Both?" Kana said, avoiding looking at Utau and Amu as she spoke the words. "She's kind of dangerous? I'd rather not risk it? But mostly..." She hesitated. "...the murders." The girl shook her head and shuddered slightly. "I kept trying not to think about it. I was good at that." She shook her head again as her voice trailed off, struggling for words for a few seconds before managing: "But right now I can't. They deserved to die. I still believe that," she finished fiercely. "But... I killed people, Amu," Kana repeated, a note of hysteria entering her voice. "You can't just ignore that! And you have a little sister already. Do you even have... space for..."
Kana trailed off, staring at Amu with a look of mild confusion on her face.
"Miki... grew?" Amu hazarded, shrugging at Kana's disbelief. "We don't know how to explain it either?" She chuckled weakly, glancing at Utau. "She's taking the guest room right now, until Mom and Dad can figure out what to do. You can meet her later if you want," she added uncertainly. "She's kinda shy, though."
"...I see," Kana replied slowly after a few seconds of stunned silence. She blinked several times in quick succession and then nodded at Amu. "Sure, why not. Why wouldn't your Chara turn into a twin? I'm done being surprised by you."
Utau chose not to say that this wasn't really surprising, in light of Amu's everything, and opted to pat Kana gently on the shoulder instead. Shirogane was giving them a look that was half confusion, half intrigue, before she settled for ignoring the pinkette. Not a terrible idea, really, considering the tide of absurdity that was threatening to derail the conversation. Though she was looking forward to seeing the girl. Miki was fun.
"Getting back on topic," Shirogane said. "We'll discuss your actions later, once I have investigated. It's too early to make any decisions." Kana twitched uncomfortably at those words, a sense of uncertainty settling in. "I would like you to come home with me, however. Do you understand why?"
"...yeah," Kana replied after a few seconds, nodding reluctantly and making a face at Shirogane even as she did so. "You don't trust me. I wouldn't trust me either." Utau certainly didn't.
Amu made to protest at those words, before a touch from Utau stilled her and the girl subsided unhappily, staring holes in Shirogane's shoes instead.
"There is that," Shirogane replied neutrally. "However, I also believe there are additional problems we should discuss once we're home. Those related to the abuse you have suffered." She paused before continuing on: "From your mother, in particular. You haven't had a 'normal' life in... years?" Shirogane asked the question uncertainly, a slight crack in her facade of unflappability.
"I... haven't?" Kana replied hesitantly, biting her lip and avoiding looking at Amu. "I suppose. Since I was nine, maybe? There were still a lot of things I could do? ...I didn't see mom much," she added uncomfortably at Amu's stare, giving Amu a pained smile in return. "She was researching Yui's condition. I was still going to school; Mom taught me on weekends. Until we realised I'm psionic, and the whole thing with the Scavengers happened." She shuddered at those words, all her awkwardness vanishing in an instant as a look of pure self-loathing flashed across her face.
It was an expression Utau was familiar with by now.
"Which would be good reason to put you back in school, if all the safety concerns could be addressed," Shirogane murmured. "Which seems unlikely. There are... problems. Nonetheless, you could be placed in a care home temporarily until some long-term solution can be found. I'm not suggesting such. Can you guess why?"
"Mom," Kana replied promptly; a faint hint of disgust entering her voice as she spoke those words. "She... won't like it," the girl finished uncomfortably after a second or so of hesitation.
Shirogane let out a sigh.
"You're clever, but it's not just you, and I'm not doing this to punish you. I don't think anyone else could give you the help you need. There's also Yui," she said calmly, giving Kana a small shake of her head. "Whom I may need your help to find. First, because you are the one most connected to her. And second-"
She placed a hand on Kana's shoulder, stopping the girl from protesting as she gave her a level stare.
"-because I suspect you would run here on your own, if I didn't let you help."
Kana flinched and then hunched her shoulders inwards in response to those words.
"...and Amu," Kana said. "She picked up some pieces of her."
The 'fox'. Amu opened her mouth and then closed it again.
"We'll discuss it later," Shirogane told her gently. "For now, though…"
"She needs rest," Amu interjected flatly. "Real rest," she stressed as Shirogane stared at her in mild surprise. "She's barely hanging on. If we're leaving, then let's leave." Her voice reflected her inner agitation perfectly—a quiet worry for Kana, intermingled with a better hidden sense of urgency. Something was bothering Amu and it had nothing to do with Shirogane's plans for Kana, which were only practical as far as Utau was concerned anyway.
Utau checked her watch.
Oh. It had nearly been long enough that Midori would call for help. Yes—that would do it. She gave Amu a mental nudge, feeling slightly amused. Amu-chan not wanting to disappoint her parents was… very her, but also rather cute—and not the most critical thing here. Though she was probably right. Kana did feel like she was barely hanging on.
She might have suggested finding Kana somewhere to live. Had thought about it, honestly considered asking Hikaru to find her some small apartment somewhere that she could stay in. That's what Utau would have liked the most, while she was trapped with Easter, before she'd learned to trust her foster parents. And she knew Hikaru could pull it off without anyone asking too many questions.
The question wasn't: 'Did Kana want that.' It wasn't even: 'Did Kana need that?' It was…
Utau really didn't know enough about her to tell what would make the girl happy, other than the fact that Amu would be involved somehow, but Kana had raised a salient point. Utau really… she didn't dislike her, did she? But she couldn't trust her. Kana had hurt Amu. And Utau would ignore that, and would try to pretend it was fine, because it was Amu and Kana seemed rather more stable now, and Amu didn't want anyone to hurt—but that didn't make it okay in Utau's head. It'd take a while before Utau could trust her.
Somebody needed to look out for Amu.
And putting Kana with someone who could shut her down by touching her, was better for everyone involved. Utau hoped Shirogane had a lot of time, though. She couldn't imagine there were too many others like her.
"I'm not that tired," Kana protested.
Amu fixed her with a flat stare in response, and Kana withered under that stare almost immediately; grumbling unhappily but accepting defeat all the same.
"Fine," she said after a few seconds. "Let's... go. I'll do whatever you say." She hesitated again, an uncomfortable expression flashing across her face. Utau could feel a rebellious instinct trying to claw its way back to the surface. It didn't make it.
"...and I can stay with you," Kana continued after a second or so, daring Amu to contradict her as she spoke those words. "Until after... Manticore is dealt with. And everyone is rescued. Then I'll go to jail, I guess." She grimaced and looked away from Amu at those words, choosing to stare at the floor instead as she spoke, a feeling of guilt settling into her again. "...like mom told me I would."
Shirogane's facade cracked slightly at those words. She closed her eyes for a moment or so, taking a deep breath, before opening them again. "We'll see," she said gently. "Please don't assume anything will happen. This might not be as simple as you think, and I'd rather you focus on what matters. Right now, I think, that's a bath and sleep. Then food." She shook her head at Kana's questioning look. "You need your energy."
"Okay," Kana replied quietly, her expression sliding towards numbness. "You're right. Naomi says the same thing."
"We'll talk about Naomi as well, but not until tomorrow."
⁂
Hikaru was waiting downstairs.
Utau wasn't too surprised. The last couple of months he'd made a habit of popping up whenever Ami did, dragged into some mischief or other by his friend's need to indulge in childish things with someone who was still a child—much to his chagrin, honestly, or so he claimed. Utau knew him well enough by now to know better than that. He was reading manga on the couch, presumably filled in by Midori and Ami as they passed.
He perked up as they entered the room, however; eyes focusing on Utau immediately and a relieved smile flickering across his face at the sight of her. "You're back," he said quietly, pushing himself off the couch and nodding once at Amu as he approached them, taking in the other two before refocusing on her. "Was this- was everything okay? Ami-chan said you'd be fine," he added. "I should have known better than to worry."
But worry he had. Utau could tell as much from the way he looked at her. And he couldn't hide his emotions, which were more intense than usual right now; worry and relief and a touch of lingering anxiety in the mix of things he was projecting at the room in general. He'd probably been waiting for an hour by now, trying not to panic and failing miserably; there was a crack through the floor below the staircase which hadn't been there before, so he'd let his emotions get away from him as he waited for something, anything to come back with news of what was going on upstairs.
Kana had taken one look at her cousin and hidden behind Shirogane, which—Utau didn't know what to say about that.
"Sorry," Utau told him quietly. She knelt down to let him give her a hug, letting herself sink into it for a few seconds before pulling away with an apologetic smile on her face. "It got... complicated."
Hikaru nodded, trying not to look too upset as he did so.
"I was scared," he confided. "I heard you call for help. Something weird was going on. I saw the stairwell. And I didn't want to go upstairs, because I was scared I'd break it. Which would hurt you." He looked down at the floor in embarrassment, shuffling his feet awkwardly for a second or so before sighing and looking back up with a determined expression on his face. "Can we go home?" he asked, glancing briefly at the others in the room before returning his attention to Utau again, lingering on Kana as he did so. "There's a car outside. And a driver. I'll take you home."
Utau smiled at him gratefully, reaching out and ruffling his hair. He could be really cute sometimes. "Thanks," she said quietly. "That's perfect. Though can we visit Amu first? ...what time is it?"
"Right," Hikaru agreed readily, looking much happier than he had a few seconds ago. "Of course. ...it's almost nine."
That matched her watch.
Shirogane looked oddly at him for a moment, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Well then," she said. "I'll call a taxi. Kana…" She eyed the girl. "...let's go get you some clothes that don't look like they've been in a fire first."
"...got it," Kana said. "Amu, I…"
Amu gave her a hug. Kana stiffened slightly, then relaxed. Utau could spot a few tears making their way down her cheeks, and that vague sense of rebellion tried to rise up again, but once again failed. Utau couldn't remember the last time she'd seen someone so utterly exhausted yet still standing.
Shirogane untangled her from Amu, ignoring the girl's faint grumble of protest.
"Guess we'll see you later?" Utau said to Shirogane. "...did you give Amu's mother your phone number?"
"I did," Shirogane replied, not reacting outwardly as Kana slumped into her side instead, the girl's eyes half-open and bleary as she vanished from Utau's empathic perception. "I was intending to check in later tonight anyway." She shook her head slightly at Utau's questioning look. "But... Shirogane Naoto. If you search for the name, you'll find me. Contact me if you need anything. Or for an interview, if you have the time. I have... many questions."
She shook her head, then pulled out her phone to make the arrangements.
Utau could finally go home.
It had been quite a day.
= = =
And quite an arc. This marks the end of it, but not the end of its fallout. I'll provide XP updates, voting options and so forth for the upcoming period in a couple of days, but right now you have another choice to make:
Which interludes do you want, before that vote?
You can vote for as many of these as you'd like. Any interlude with two or more votes will be written, though the amount of effort may vary. You can also write in requests, though I reserve the right to veto those.
[ ] Ami's triumphant return home, and what comes from that
- <Midori> Do you think we can get a bulk discount on bunk beds?
[ ] Amu's return home
- Will be merged with Ami's if both are chosen.
[ ] Kana's arrival at Naoto's apartment
- <Kana> This is bigger than I thought.
[ ] Amu's last chat with Nagihiko
- This was before the demon attack.
[ ] Io and Hibiki having a quiet afternoon
- Very saccharine.
[ ] Lulu visiting the library
- Not the family library. The other library, the one with the giant ice crystals in it.
[ ] Misaki's grand adventure
- She'sallowed to explore the school!
[ ] A class meeting while Amu is still at JPs
- Will give you some idea about Makoto
[ ] The evening after This Day, Kukai drops by
- <Kukai> You need a bigger couch.
[ ]Saaya's condition
- Nero is writing this. You'll get it when it's ready.
[ ] Write-in
The molten remnants of her attempt at murdering them hissed and crackled as it cooled. It back-lit her, setting the scene for what Utau thought would be one of the stranger conversations she'd ever listened to.
She tried not to react in any visible manner, and failed, clenching Amu's hand again. Maybe trembling a little, because this was all more… real, than any of their normal escapades. X-eggs were…
They were real parts of people. But Utau had, at the time, told herself they weren't.
Or at least she'd tried to.
She'd never- let herself believe- that she was harming anyone.
Except for Amu.
Kana didn't seem to notice, whatever her inner turmoil. Amu had told her the girl tried not to read the mind of anyone but enemies, and Utau was glad to see that that, at least, was true—even if Kana's definition of 'enemy' was far too broad for either her or Iru's liking. Split in half or not. Sane, or not. And yet-
"Hold still, or you won't be anything at all," Shadow-Kana muttered. Kana's expression shifted slightly, a touch of grim amusement flickering across her face. 'So?' she might have said, but didn't.
Amu, being Amu, made a wordless sound of distress in the back of her throat. Amu, also being Amu, didn't pause whatever treatment she was giving Kana.
Therein lay the rub, because the guilt and anguish radiating from the two halves couldn't possibly be fake. Utau would know. She'd felt it as well, after every concert—pushed it down—and nearly drowned in it, before Amu had found her. She'd thought she'd had to, that following Easter's orders was her only choice. Kana had also thought she'd had to. The parallels were far too many, and far too blatant to ignore, and Kana was—well, maybe—twelve. 'A child,' she wanted to say.
It wasn't just the words.
Amu had always come off as older than her years.
Kana did not. Kana came off, especially if you could see her feelings, as someone who was trying to appear in control and older, but who couldn't. Like some of the children she'd worked with when she was still an idol, and Utau might have been one of them—she certainly hadn't been the nicest person at the time. Which meant, she wasn't sure what to say right now.
Mostly because, child or not, she was scared of her.
How had Amu…?
After a long while Shadow-Kana sat back, sighing, and Amu slumped towards Utau with an exhausted yet triumphant look on her face, her shoulders sagging with relief. "Done," Shadow-Kana announced softly. "I couldn't get all of it. We'll need to be careful. But the phoenix is dead, sure enough."
Amu mumbled something unintelligible as Kana straightened, staring at her own shadow with an unreadable expression on her face.
"...thank you," she said eventually, nodding once at Shadow-Kana, who smiled weakly in response. "I guess..."
"Let's just get it over with," Shadow-Kana told her tiredly.
And how was Kana even talking? Her emotions were barely coherent, jumping from guilt to anxiety to impatience with barely a second's pause. Doing several of them simultaneously, in fact. Utau hoped, she really hoped, that Amu knew what she was doing.
Her hand tightened on Amu's again as Shadow-Kana gave them a little wave, turned towards her counterpart, and then evaporated into thin air as the last few pieces of Kana's mind violently slammed together. The girl's back arched before volition drained out of her entirely, leaving her staring blankly at the wall in front of her.
A second passed.
Another.
And a third. Then Kana shook herself awake, blinking rapidly before turning to face the rest of them and smiling hesitantly. "Thank you," she said quietly, a hint of something distant in her voice even as she bowed her head towards them. "All of you." Her eyes remained faintly luminescent, but her emotions had calmed down. "And I'm sorry for..."
Stabbing Amu with mental daggers? Trying to burn Shirogane alive? Nearly going mad? There was a lot to be sorry for-
Utau kicked herself.
"It's okay," Amu said immediately, blissfully ignorant of the fact that it wasn't actually true, not in the slightest—before Kana could finish speaking those words. "I'm just glad you're better now. You are, right? You're okay?" she said hopefully.
Kana thought about that for a moment, and shrugged in response. "...for now?" she offered as an answer. "My head's foggy, and..." She hugged herself, shivering slightly in spite of the sweltering heat from her attempt at killing them. "It doesn't hurt anymore, but..." She shuddered, blinking away tears instead. Her head was full of a mixture of relief, and… even more intense guilt. "It was noisy for so long. It feels weird having my head be so quiet."
Now Utau was starting to feel bad.
"Even so." Kana glanced at Utau again, ducking her head and raising a hand to shield her face. "...I don't know what to do anymore," she said, still staring at the floor below them. "Naomi's been captured. Aoi too, maybe in the same place as Yuna. I couldn't save them. Yui's..." She hesitated again, lowering her hand and looking briefly up at the ceiling above them. "Yui-chan's still somewhere in here." She shivered. "Somewhere," she repeated quietly, half to herself, more a prayer than a statement of fact.
"And your Shadow?" Amu asked quickly.
Disbelief bled into Kana's expression at the question, and she hesitated before replying.
"I'm still here," she said eventually, giving them a smile. "I admitted it, didn't I? I'm just way, way, way too tired to pretend. And I don't want to lose you, Amu, even if that was a mean question. I know why you said it." Kana paused and took a deep breath, calming herself down somewhat before continuing on. "But Yui..." She waved one hand uselessly at their surroundings with an uncomfortable look on her face, turning to look at Shirogane.
Utau let her hand drop.
Kana's emotions had, somehow, simplified. Less guilt, now. Less frustration. More just… raw fear, almost desperation. Only a faint thread of hope underlying all of that. Another set of emotions that she recognised.
"Please, please help me to find her," the young girl pleaded with an intensity that made Utau feel cold in spite of the heat still surrounding them all, her body language shifting from tired and listless to something sharp and raw in an instant; a note of panic in her voice. "Please."
"That is my job," Shirogane replied evenly. For a brief moment a hint of sympathy flickered across the detective's face—which was then replaced by an expression of practised neutrality—before she nodded at Kana. "...Kana-san."
A brief smile flickered across Kana's face at those words, and then it vanished as she slumped slightly in her seat. The girl's body language practically oozed relief as she finally managed to relax, nodding gratefully at Shirogane even as a few stray tears ran down her cheeks.
"Not today, regrettably," Shirogane continued after a short while. "It's become late evening. I still need to get your friends out of here before I do anything else, and I believe you could also do with rest, to recover your balance. Is that alright?"
"...yeah," Kana whispered after a second or so, nodding once and deflating into Amu. She looked years younger than her age. Utau was fairly sure that was just exhaustion finally setting in. "Yeah." She paused, taking another deep breath before speaking again. "Yui will survive. That's right, isn't it? Getting stuck here, in that way... she split into a dozen shadows, not just one, but it should be the same thing... she'll be able to survive it, right? She hasn't been here very long." Kana aimed the question at Shirogane.
"Yes," Shirogane agreed. "There have been cases of people being stranded far longer than a week. A friend of mine had a particularly traumatic experience a few months ago—but she managed to emerge whole and healthy." She shrugged slightly at Kana's uncomfortable glance at the partly melted ruins around them, which had finally stopped glowing—and added; "As did I. I'd never blame a child for their actions in a place like this, or anyone really. You weren't in your right mind."
The guilt bubbled inside of Kana's chest regardless, as did a strong sense of doubt. The girl was too tired to question it, however. The reassurance seemed to be enough for now.
And Utau, once again, kicked herself. It was hard to see the girl in front of her as dangerous.
"Th-thank you," she repeated instead, before looking back at Amu again—a weak smile flickering across her face as she spoke that rapidly faded into something more solemn.
"I shouldn't go home with you," she said quietly. "Love the idea, Amu-chan, but there's no way it's reasonable."
Amu spluttered.
"You've killed people," Shirogane observed neutrally, interrupting before Amu could. "To protect your friends and yourself from a fate worse than death," she continued on, nodding slightly at Kana's uncomfortable flinch, "-but that doesn't mean it's not murder. Is that what you're thinking of? Or your mother, perhaps—she might go after anyone you're close to, if she can?"
"Both?" Kana said, avoiding looking at Utau and Amu as she spoke the words. "She's kind of dangerous? I'd rather not risk it? But mostly..." She hesitated. "...the murders." The girl shook her head and shuddered slightly. "I kept trying not to think about it. I was good at that." She shook her head again as her voice trailed off, struggling for words for a few seconds before managing: "But right now I can't. They deserved to die. I still believe that," she finished fiercely. "But... I killed people, Amu," Kana repeated, a note of hysteria entering her voice. "You can't just ignore that! And you have a little sister already. Do you even have... space for..."
Kana trailed off, staring at Amu with a look of mild confusion on her face.
"Miki... grew?" Amu hazarded, shrugging at Kana's disbelief. "We don't know how to explain it either?" She chuckled weakly, glancing at Utau. "She's taking the guest room right now, until Mom and Dad can figure out what to do. You can meet her later if you want," she added uncertainly. "She's kinda shy, though."
"...I see," Kana replied slowly after a few seconds of stunned silence. She blinked several times in quick succession and then nodded at Amu. "Sure, why not. Why wouldn't your Chara turn into a twin? I'm done being surprised by you."
Utau chose not to say that this wasn't really surprising, in light of Amu's everything, and opted to pat Kana gently on the shoulder instead. Shirogane was giving them a look that was half confusion, half intrigue, before she settled for ignoring the pinkette. Not a terrible idea, really, considering the tide of absurdity that was threatening to derail the conversation. Though she was looking forward to seeing the girl. Miki was fun.
"Getting back on topic," Shirogane said. "We'll discuss your actions later, once I have investigated. It's too early to make any decisions." Kana twitched uncomfortably at those words, a sense of uncertainty settling in. "I would like you to come home with me, however. Do you understand why?"
"...yeah," Kana replied after a few seconds, nodding reluctantly and making a face at Shirogane even as she did so. "You don't trust me. I wouldn't trust me either." Utau certainly didn't.
Amu made to protest at those words, before a touch from Utau stilled her and the girl subsided unhappily, staring holes in Shirogane's shoes instead.
"There is that," Shirogane replied neutrally. "However, I also believe there are additional problems we should discuss once we're home. Those related to the abuse you have suffered." She paused before continuing on: "From your mother, in particular. You haven't had a 'normal' life in... years?" Shirogane asked the question uncertainly, a slight crack in her facade of unflappability.
"I... haven't?" Kana replied hesitantly, biting her lip and avoiding looking at Amu. "I suppose. Since I was nine, maybe? There were still a lot of things I could do? ...I didn't see mom much," she added uncomfortably at Amu's stare, giving Amu a pained smile in return. "She was researching Yui's condition. I was still going to school; Mom taught me on weekends. Until we realised I'm psionic, and the whole thing with the Scavengers happened." She shuddered at those words, all her awkwardness vanishing in an instant as a look of pure self-loathing flashed across her face.
It was an expression Utau was familiar with by now.
"Which would be good reason to put you back in school, if all the safety concerns could be addressed," Shirogane murmured. "Which seems unlikely. There are... problems. Nonetheless, you could be placed in a care home temporarily until some long-term solution can be found. I'm not suggesting such. Can you guess why?"
"Mom," Kana replied promptly; a faint hint of disgust entering her voice as she spoke those words. "She... won't like it," the girl finished uncomfortably after a second or so of hesitation.
Shirogane let out a sigh.
"You're clever, but it's not just you, and I'm not doing this to punish you. I don't think anyone else could give you the help you need. There's also Yui," she said calmly, giving Kana a small shake of her head. "Whom I may need your help to find. First, because you are the one most connected to her. And second-"
She placed a hand on Kana's shoulder, stopping the girl from protesting as she gave her a level stare.
"-because I suspect you would run here on your own, if I didn't let you help."
Kana flinched and then hunched her shoulders inwards in response to those words.
"...and Amu," Kana said. "She picked up some pieces of her."
The 'fox'. Amu opened her mouth and then closed it again.
"We'll discuss it later," Shirogane told her gently. "For now, though…"
"She needs rest," Amu interjected flatly. "Real rest," she stressed as Shirogane stared at her in mild surprise. "She's barely hanging on. If we're leaving, then let's leave." Her voice reflected her inner agitation perfectly—a quiet worry for Kana, intermingled with a better hidden sense of urgency. Something was bothering Amu and it had nothing to do with Shirogane's plans for Kana, which were only practical as far as Utau was concerned anyway.
Utau checked her watch.
Oh. It had nearly been long enough that Midori would call for help. Yes—that would do it. She gave Amu a mental nudge, feeling slightly amused. Amu-chan not wanting to disappoint her parents was… very her, but also rather cute—and not the most critical thing here. Though she was probably right. Kana did feel like she was barely hanging on.
She might have suggested finding Kana somewhere to live. Had thought about it, honestly considered asking Hikaru to find her some small apartment somewhere that she could stay in. That's what Utau would have liked the most, while she was trapped with Easter, before she'd learned to trust her foster parents. And she knew Hikaru could pull it off without anyone asking too many questions.
The question wasn't: 'Did Kana want that.' It wasn't even: 'Did Kana need that?' It was…
Utau really didn't know enough about her to tell what would make the girl happy, other than the fact that Amu would be involved somehow, but Kana had raised a salient point. Utau really… she didn't dislike her, did she? But she couldn't trust her. Kana had hurt Amu. And Utau would ignore that, and would try to pretend it was fine, because it was Amu and Kana seemed rather more stable now, and Amu didn't want anyone to hurt—but that didn't make it okay in Utau's head. It'd take a while before Utau could trust her.
Somebody needed to look out for Amu.
And putting Kana with someone who could shut her down by touching her, was better for everyone involved. Utau hoped Shirogane had a lot of time, though. She couldn't imagine there were too many others like her.
"I'm not that tired," Kana protested.
Amu fixed her with a flat stare in response, and Kana withered under that stare almost immediately; grumbling unhappily but accepting defeat all the same.
"Fine," she said after a few seconds. "Let's... go. I'll do whatever you say." She hesitated again, an uncomfortable expression flashing across her face. Utau could feel a rebellious instinct trying to claw its way back to the surface. It didn't make it.
"...and I can stay with you," Kana continued after a second or so, daring Amu to contradict her as she spoke those words. "Until after... Manticore is dealt with. And everyone is rescued. Then I'll go to jail, I guess." She grimaced and looked away from Amu at those words, choosing to stare at the floor instead as she spoke, a feeling of guilt settling into her again. "...like mom told me I would."
Shirogane's facade cracked slightly at those words. She closed her eyes for a moment or so, taking a deep breath, before opening them again. "We'll see," she said gently. "Please don't assume anything will happen. This might not be as simple as you think, and I'd rather you focus on what matters. Right now, I think, that's a bath and sleep. Then food." She shook her head at Kana's questioning look. "You need your energy."
"Okay," Kana replied quietly, her expression sliding towards numbness. "You're right. Naomi says the same thing."
"We'll talk about Naomi as well, but not until tomorrow."
⁂
Hikaru was waiting downstairs.
Utau wasn't too surprised. The last couple of months he'd made a habit of popping up whenever Ami did, dragged into some mischief or other by his friend's need to indulge in childish things with someone who was still a child—much to his chagrin, honestly, or so he claimed. Utau knew him well enough by now to know better than that. He was reading manga on the couch, presumably filled in by Midori and Ami as they passed.
He perked up as they entered the room, however; eyes focusing on Utau immediately and a relieved smile flickering across his face at the sight of her. "You're back," he said quietly, pushing himself off the couch and nodding once at Amu as he approached them, taking in the other two before refocusing on her. "Was this- was everything okay? Ami-chan said you'd be fine," he added. "I should have known better than to worry."
But worry he had. Utau could tell as much from the way he looked at her. And he couldn't hide his emotions, which were more intense than usual right now; worry and relief and a touch of lingering anxiety in the mix of things he was projecting at the room in general. He'd probably been waiting for an hour by now, trying not to panic and failing miserably; there was a crack through the floor below the staircase which hadn't been there before, so he'd let his emotions get away from him as he waited for something, anything to come back with news of what was going on upstairs.
Kana had taken one look at her cousin and hidden behind Shirogane, which—Utau didn't know what to say about that.
"Sorry," Utau told him quietly. She knelt down to let him give her a hug, letting herself sink into it for a few seconds before pulling away with an apologetic smile on her face. "It got... complicated."
Hikaru nodded, trying not to look too upset as he did so.
"I was scared," he confided. "I heard you call for help. Something weird was going on. I saw the stairwell. And I didn't want to go upstairs, because I was scared I'd break it. Which would hurt you." He looked down at the floor in embarrassment, shuffling his feet awkwardly for a second or so before sighing and looking back up with a determined expression on his face. "Can we go home?" he asked, glancing briefly at the others in the room before returning his attention to Utau again, lingering on Kana as he did so. "There's a car outside. And a driver. I'll take you home."
Utau smiled at him gratefully, reaching out and ruffling his hair. He could be really cute sometimes. "Thanks," she said quietly. "That's perfect. Though can we visit Amu first? ...what time is it?"
"Right," Hikaru agreed readily, looking much happier than he had a few seconds ago. "Of course. ...it's almost nine."
That matched her watch.
Shirogane looked oddly at him for a moment, raising an eyebrow slightly. "Well then," she said. "I'll call a taxi. Kana…" She eyed the girl. "...let's go get you some clothes that don't look like they've been in a fire first."
"...got it," Kana said. "Amu, I…"
Amu gave her a hug. Kana stiffened slightly, then relaxed. Utau could spot a few tears making their way down her cheeks, and that vague sense of rebellion tried to rise up again, but once again failed. Utau couldn't remember the last time she'd seen someone so utterly exhausted yet still standing.
Shirogane untangled her from Amu, ignoring the girl's faint grumble of protest.
"Guess we'll see you later?" Utau said to Shirogane. "...did you give Amu's mother your phone number?"
"I did," Shirogane replied, not reacting outwardly as Kana slumped into her side instead, the girl's eyes half-open and bleary as she vanished from Utau's empathic perception. "I was intending to check in later tonight anyway." She shook her head slightly at Utau's questioning look. "But... Shirogane Naoto. If you search for the name, you'll find me. Contact me if you need anything. Or for an interview, if you have the time. I have... many questions."
She shook her head, then pulled out her phone to make the arrangements.
Utau could finally go home.
It had been quite a day.
= = =
And quite an arc. This marks the end of it, but not the end of its fallout. I'll provide XP updates, voting options and so forth for the upcoming period in a couple of days, but right now you have another choice to make:
Which interludes do you want, before that vote?
You can vote for as many of these as you'd like. Any interlude with two or more votes will be written, though the amount of effort may vary. You can also write in requests, though I reserve the right to veto those.
[ ] Ami's triumphant return home, and what comes from that
- <Midori> Do you think we can get a bulk discount on bunk beds?
[ ] Amu's return home
- Will be merged with Ami's if both are chosen.
[ ] Kana's arrival at Naoto's apartment
- <Kana> This is bigger than I thought.
[ ] Amu's last chat with Nagihiko
- This was before the demon attack.
[ ] Io and Hibiki having a quiet afternoon
- Very saccharine.
[ ] Lulu visiting the library
- Not the family library. The other library, the one with the giant ice crystals in it.
[ ] Misaki's grand adventure
- She's
[ ] A class meeting while Amu is still at JPs
- Will give you some idea about Makoto
[ ] The evening after This Day, Kukai drops by
- <Kukai> You need a bigger couch.
[ ]
- Nero is writing this. You'll get it when it's ready.
[ ] Write-in
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Interlude: Lulu's visit to the Library
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
High Council meeting notes, Oct. 23, 2009
Present: Éloise Montclair, Armand de Valois, Geneviève the Glacier, Matriarch Morcerf, Auxiliary Isabelle de Châtillon (Protocol Enforcement), Archon Philippe de Rochefort (Secure Processing), Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto (Observer), plus delegations.
Note: Châtillon is taking the minutes for this session. All typed words in this document are hers unless otherwise stated.
Security: Auxiliary Charlotte de Beauçart (Civil Protection)
Topic: Recent developments.
Montclair: It was agreed at our last meeting that no further discussion would occur without evidence of progress. Considering you brought your granddaughter, I assume you've come to tell us something new?
Matriarch: You're correct, Madam President. Philippe?
Rochefort: The Secure Processing branch has recovered evidence from the Seiyo Academy incursion. Details are available on the intranet, and have been copied to your secretaries. The gist is that psionics appears functionally identical to sorcery as far as we can tell, though we've recovered no formal documentation that makes that claim beyond the videos taken by Châtillon during the battle. The immediate trigger for the event was, as we suspected, a clash between the Lock-bearer and one of her classmates.
Mingled noises of disbelief and anger from several of those present; the latter primarily from the Matriarch's corner of the table. Morcerf motions for silence.
Matriarch: And the root cause?
Rochefort: JPs believes accidental interaction with a deliberate, sorcerous weakening of reality in that section of Tokyo. The clash destroyed control lines in unrecoverable fashion, exceeding failsafe tolerances of the disrupted spell. It subsequently deranged, cross-connecting control and power nets and producing... the effects seen on the video. Analysis is difficult because of the damage, but the effect itself was likely the intended outcome, weakened significantly from design parameters. If the power feed hadn't bled off into computational segments-
Morcerf: Not relevant at this time, Phillipe.
Rochefort: —sorry ma'am.
Morcerf: Does Secure Processing concur with JPs' analysis?
Rochefort: Essentially yes. We do believe JPs is missing a portion of the picture. The eigensignature of the spellcraft matches that of recent D-class incursions here in Europe, and I have speculated that it may be the same spell.
Uneasy murmurs from most of the assembled participants in the room, Matriarch Morcerf included; Lulu Morcerf Yamamoto stiffens but remains silent.
Matriarch: Don't tell me this is an Arms affair after all?
Rochefort: It may well be; in which case we have the same attacker cause a seemingly unrelated situation in the city of Tokyo. However, that is speculation for which we lack evidence. Both Secure Processing and JPs concur that the effect itself was incomplete, and the underlying spellcraft was substantially ruined by power bleed-off through secondary computational segments; but Secure Processing is unable to speculate on how the intended result might have differed from the observed results given current data. We will continue to attempt to gather more information on this front, but expect that acquiring answers may prove... difficult. We also have no combat-capable assets in the region.
Montclair: You should strengthen our cooperation with JPs. Proceed as you see fit, and keep us informed. Anything else?
Rochefort: The Lock-bearer was hospitalised with grade one mental abrasion subsequent to the event. Her opponent was hospitalised with grade five.
General commotion.
Matriarch: Hold-
Charlotte: You're saying the Lock-bearer is injured!?
Lulu, shrieking: Five? What-
Rochefort: Madam President!
Montclair: Silence! Everyone sit down!
Arguing continues; President Montclair and Auxiliary Beauçart have to intervene on multiple occasions before a semblance of order is restored.
Rochefort: -both have recovered, in the Lock-bearer's case without apparent damage. Most notably, her opponent is accompanied by a rogue Seelie.
No replies. Apparent disbelief, lasting for several seconds.
Rochefort: ...there is no question. Saaya Yamabuki is recovering from grade five abrasion. She is accompanied by a rogue Seelie who appears to be acting as her guardian. We've attempted to investigate her history but can find no reliable records indicating magical background. Given the extreme nature of the injury, we can only attribute her recovery to psionic adaptations.
Silence descends over the room, lingering for several seconds.
Montclair: That doesn't match the lock-bearer's personality. Is there any evidence that Yamabuki's wounds are self-inflicted?
Rochefort: Yes, ma'am.
Silence resumes.
Geneviève: We're talking about a twelve-year-old! Morcerf, I'd like you to explain why this is in any way acceptable. It isn't the 1800s. We're meant to be better than this.
Matriarch: ...I...
Montclair: Geneviève, control yourself. We had no opportunity to intervene. Yamabuki is entirely a wild card.
Geneviève: Then make one! For heaven's sake-
Rochefort: JPs is already arranging psychological support for those who need it. There will be no repetitions.
Geneviève: A twelve-year-old with grade five abrasion-!
Rochefort: We're not ignoring this. Nor is JPs. Please calm down.
Matriarch de Morcerf observes that her granddaughter is crying, and moves to comfort her.
Montclair: I concur with Phillipe. Geneviève, calm down. Matriarch Morcerf—Armand has been passing on your reports to me for years now, and I have always had reservations about your meddling. The Lock is a divine artefact, not an object we are meant to tamper with—much less turn into a weapon for our own purposes. Now it's soul-bound to a teenager.
Matriarch: That, in fairness, wasn't me. Amakawa Tsukasa is a loose acquaintance at most.
Châtillon: Could anyone explain why we are talking about interfering in Japan, on another agency's turf?
Several voices speak up at once; Montclair demands silence and calls for an explanation from Rochefort and Morcerf in turn before the noise subsides again.
Morcerf: My granddaughter spotted a pattern. It's one I should have noticed, except it's entirely too big. Does anyone know what this is?
Morcerf presents a standard, type L (spherical) calcinating pattern, set on a white background.
Châtillon: Is this a joke?
Morcerf: Not at all.
Another slide. Now the same pattern is set with a world map as the background, including the surrounding oceanic areas and polar regions. The feedback knot is located inside Tokyo, Japan.
Morcerf: Tell me this isn't interesting.
Châtillon: Why did you make this?
Morcerf: To play connect-the-dots.
Another slide. The map is overlaid with a large number of dots spread loosely across the continents. Some, overlaying the pattern, are in red.
Morcerf: These are all D-type incursions for the last seven months. I asked Rochefort to filter for the ones with matching eigensignatures to the Tokyo incursion.
Another slide. Every dot except the red ones disappear.
Morcerf: And then he filtered out every other anomaly to minimise visual clutter. Currently there is one D-class incursion event every eight hours or so, down from one every six hours prior to the Tokyo incursion. I believe the matching eigensignatures are due to each incursion being caused by literally the same spell. There was a pause of one week after that event.
Rochefort: I concur.
Montclair: And no sign that Operation Armsbreaker had anything to do with it?
Morcerf: None. Our actions have been band-aids. The timing doesn't match.
Geneviève: Just what are you suggesting?
Morcerf: The Tokyo incursion was a major failure, damaging the core of the spell—which resulted in a significant decrease in global incursions—which is to say, we are facing an enemy capable of casting a singular, planet-scale spell which we don't understand but can recognise by its fingerprint; one which follows the general principles of alchemic calcination; and who is capable of repairing it after that level of damage. Our opponent is either a god, or someone backed by one. It suggests a reason for the recent failure of precognition.
Commotion; Montclair motions for silence but does not achieve it for some time.
Châtillon: That's- You're insane! This is all completely-
Morcerf: We have all heard seers claim the world will end. I propose it's time we take them seriously, and to that end I'm supporting Seiyo's request for funding. We should tie them closer to our council.
Morcerf lays out plans for recruiting additional members and reinforcing Seiyo Academy in case of another incursion as discussion proceeds, with Rochefort in particular joining her in contributing suggestions for personnel.
Geneviève: When will you tell us why you brought your granddaughter? I doubt it was merely to scare her with apocalyptic predictions.
Morcerf: Ah, of course. Charlotte?
Charlotte: Ma'am?
Morcerf: Transcribe the following at your convenience, and store it in the archives. I hereby declare Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto to be the heir apparent of the Morcerf clan and its resources. This declaration is effective immediately, subject to revocation by myself or Lulu de Morcerf.
Lulu blushes and murmurs something indistinct but too quiet to overhear. The Matriarch hugs her briefly and then returns to her seat.
Montclair: Do you intend to retire?
Morcerf: No, but I do intend to hedge my bets. It will also help her to be taken seriously when she starts to sell these.
Morcerf tosses several jewels onto the table—all black onyx—with a distinctive pattern visible on the surface.
Rochefort: These are?
Morcerf: Lulu?
Morcerf: Your turn, dear.
Lulu: These are... um... a prototype, I guess? Anti-demon grenades.
Lulu fiddles with her bracelet before launching into an explanation of her work over the past two months with the help of diagrams prepared in advance of the meeting. The details are proprietary and omitted from this document.
Morcerf: I can speak to their effectiveness. These are approximately three times more powerful than our regular issue.
Lulu, nervously: Though I only succeed about half the time when I make them.
Minor commotion. The participants appear to be getting tired of Morcerf's escapades.
Montclair: Lulu de Morcerf here is, to be clear, psionic as well. She wasn't putting herself in danger. Is that correct?
Lulu nods vigorously; no further explanation offered or requested by the council.
Montclair: I assume you'll be marketing these eventually?
Morcerf: At a reasonable price, yes; I suspect Rochefort will want them badly for our agents on the frontlines.
Rochefort: In high quantities, yes. I would prefer establishing a sustainable manufacturing process—Seiyo could likely assist—but these could be the difference between life and death in some circumstances.
The discussion moves on.
⁂
Lulu walked downstairs from the meeting room feeling like she'd been hit by a truck. Not physically, but...
It wasn't that it hadn't gone well, per se. It had gone fantastically! Her grandma had been amazing—and shown her so many sides of herself that Lulu had never seen before in the process—and with Seiyo funded properly things would start going a lot better for Amu-chan, surely. No one would doubt Lulu now, not with concrete evidence backing her up, and they'd be able to research things properly without making bad assumptions all the time, and—and—and—
It had been overwhelming, okay?
"Fuwaaaaah," she sighed tiredly as she slumped into one of the heated couches downstairs, staring up at the icy ceiling above her. The doors were on the other side of the room and her grandma was still upstairs discussing things with everyone else, which left Lulu with a few minutes of silence and solitude.
The library was made literally of ice, and it was beautiful. Shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls covered every inch of the walls, while a shimmering carpet of pure ice lay at her feet. The ceiling was just as breathtaking: a canvas of fractals and patterns carved into the ice above her head. There was no sun to light the library, but there was a sourceless glow that emanated from the ice itself, casting soft shadows throughout the room.
A frozen pendulum swung lazily back and forth above her head; its swaying motions inching back and forth in a soothing rhythm that was almost hypnotic in nature. With each swing it broke entropy, compacted heat into coolness into a perfect ice cube which would never melt. The Glacier's creations were terrifying that way. It was beautiful though, and Lulu felt a momentary pang of guilt for thinking the word 'terrifying' as she watched it; and then she lost that thread of thought as exhaustion sank its claws into her head and turned her brain into mush instead.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Liliya asked quietly, gently putting a hand on Lulu's shoulder. "Is it over already?"
"Hi," Lulu mumbled sleepily as she looked at the girl in surprise, having forgotten about her entirely in the chaos upstairs. "It's still going." She paused and shivered slightly as she took in the sight before her for a second or two before she spoke again; "...didn't see you here."
Liliya shrugged slightly. "I was reading. And you know Rosa, she doesn't like libraries." Her voice sounded tired as well, like Lulu's was. "There's something I wanted to ask you before I forget about it." She hesitated for a moment as she spoke, looking nervous before continuing on. "D-do you remember when we met?"
Lulu nodded slightly at the question, squinting at Liliya with bleary eyes.
"Well, I..." Liliya hesitated again; cheeks tinted slightly red in embarrassment at whatever it was she was trying to say. "I..." She shook her head once or twice before speaking again; her voice still quiet and hesitant as she continued on: "I decided to say yes."
She pushed aside her arctic-blue bangs, revealing a small horn on the side of her head, poking out just above her right ear; a bone-white extrusion that looked almost like a crown. She didn't say anything else as she waited for Lulu's reaction—only watching her nervously.
Lulu stared at her blankly for several seconds before blinking rapidly as it finally clicked, eyes widening slightly in surprise as she sat up in her seat.
"You went for it?" she said. "I thought... you said you like wizardry more. That it wouldn't be worth the trouble." Lulu paused before shaking her head once again in confusion at the girl's sudden change of heart. "Not that I'm complaining," she added hurriedly, holding up both hands in a placating gesture, "-but really, why now?"
"Because," Liliya replied softly, blushing faintly as she looked away from Lulu and out into the room again instead. "I didn't want to feel like a coward anymore." She fell silent for several seconds, finally looking back at Lulu with an unreadable expression. "I don't want to be the one they're protecting. Wizardry is great, Lulu. But you can't use it in combat."
"Oh..." Lulu mumbled awkwardly, fidgeting slightly as she mulled over Liliya's words. "I guess... yeah." She frowned thoughtfully for a moment. You could, if you were experienced enough. Not at Lili's age. "Okay." She smiled faintly and held out her hand towards Liliya. "Welcome to the club then!"
"The- what?" Liliya replied in confusion. "What club?"
Lulu laughed softly. "The 'people who aren't going to die' club," she said cheerfully.
Present: Éloise Montclair, Armand de Valois, Geneviève the Glacier, Matriarch Morcerf, Auxiliary Isabelle de Châtillon (Protocol Enforcement), Archon Philippe de Rochefort (Secure Processing), Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto (Observer), plus delegations.
Note: Châtillon is taking the minutes for this session. All typed words in this document are hers unless otherwise stated.
Security: Auxiliary Charlotte de Beauçart (Civil Protection)
Topic: Recent developments.
Montclair: It was agreed at our last meeting that no further discussion would occur without evidence of progress. Considering you brought your granddaughter, I assume you've come to tell us something new?
Matriarch: You're correct, Madam President. Philippe?
Rochefort: The Secure Processing branch has recovered evidence from the Seiyo Academy incursion. Details are available on the intranet, and have been copied to your secretaries. The gist is that psionics appears functionally identical to sorcery as far as we can tell, though we've recovered no formal documentation that makes that claim beyond the videos taken by Châtillon during the battle. The immediate trigger for the event was, as we suspected, a clash between the Lock-bearer and one of her classmates.
Mingled noises of disbelief and anger from several of those present; the latter primarily from the Matriarch's corner of the table. Morcerf motions for silence.
Matriarch: And the root cause?
Rochefort: JPs believes accidental interaction with a deliberate, sorcerous weakening of reality in that section of Tokyo. The clash destroyed control lines in unrecoverable fashion, exceeding failsafe tolerances of the disrupted spell. It subsequently deranged, cross-connecting control and power nets and producing... the effects seen on the video. Analysis is difficult because of the damage, but the effect itself was likely the intended outcome, weakened significantly from design parameters. If the power feed hadn't bled off into computational segments-
Morcerf: Not relevant at this time, Phillipe.
Rochefort: —sorry ma'am.
Morcerf: Does Secure Processing concur with JPs' analysis?
Rochefort: Essentially yes. We do believe JPs is missing a portion of the picture. The eigensignature of the spellcraft matches that of recent D-class incursions here in Europe, and I have speculated that it may be the same spell.
Uneasy murmurs from most of the assembled participants in the room, Matriarch Morcerf included; Lulu Morcerf Yamamoto stiffens but remains silent.
Matriarch: Don't tell me this is an Arms affair after all?
Rochefort: It may well be; in which case we have the same attacker cause a seemingly unrelated situation in the city of Tokyo. However, that is speculation for which we lack evidence. Both Secure Processing and JPs concur that the effect itself was incomplete, and the underlying spellcraft was substantially ruined by power bleed-off through secondary computational segments; but Secure Processing is unable to speculate on how the intended result might have differed from the observed results given current data. We will continue to attempt to gather more information on this front, but expect that acquiring answers may prove... difficult. We also have no combat-capable assets in the region.
Montclair: You should strengthen our cooperation with JPs. Proceed as you see fit, and keep us informed. Anything else?
Rochefort: The Lock-bearer was hospitalised with grade one mental abrasion subsequent to the event. Her opponent was hospitalised with grade five.
General commotion.
Matriarch: Hold-
Charlotte: You're saying the Lock-bearer is injured!?
Lulu, shrieking: Five? What-
Rochefort: Madam President!
Montclair: Silence! Everyone sit down!
Arguing continues; President Montclair and Auxiliary Beauçart have to intervene on multiple occasions before a semblance of order is restored.
Rochefort: -both have recovered, in the Lock-bearer's case without apparent damage. Most notably, her opponent is accompanied by a rogue Seelie.
No replies. Apparent disbelief, lasting for several seconds.
Rochefort: ...there is no question. Saaya Yamabuki is recovering from grade five abrasion. She is accompanied by a rogue Seelie who appears to be acting as her guardian. We've attempted to investigate her history but can find no reliable records indicating magical background. Given the extreme nature of the injury, we can only attribute her recovery to psionic adaptations.
Silence descends over the room, lingering for several seconds.
Montclair: That doesn't match the lock-bearer's personality. Is there any evidence that Yamabuki's wounds are self-inflicted?
Rochefort: Yes, ma'am.
Silence resumes.
Geneviève: We're talking about a twelve-year-old! Morcerf, I'd like you to explain why this is in any way acceptable. It isn't the 1800s. We're meant to be better than this.
Matriarch: ...I...
Montclair: Geneviève, control yourself. We had no opportunity to intervene. Yamabuki is entirely a wild card.
Geneviève: Then make one! For heaven's sake-
Rochefort: JPs is already arranging psychological support for those who need it. There will be no repetitions.
Geneviève: A twelve-year-old with grade five abrasion-!
Rochefort: We're not ignoring this. Nor is JPs. Please calm down.
Matriarch de Morcerf observes that her granddaughter is crying, and moves to comfort her.
Montclair: I concur with Phillipe. Geneviève, calm down. Matriarch Morcerf—Armand has been passing on your reports to me for years now, and I have always had reservations about your meddling. The Lock is a divine artefact, not an object we are meant to tamper with—much less turn into a weapon for our own purposes. Now it's soul-bound to a teenager.
Matriarch: That, in fairness, wasn't me. Amakawa Tsukasa is a loose acquaintance at most.
Châtillon: Could anyone explain why we are talking about interfering in Japan, on another agency's turf?
Several voices speak up at once; Montclair demands silence and calls for an explanation from Rochefort and Morcerf in turn before the noise subsides again.
Morcerf: My granddaughter spotted a pattern. It's one I should have noticed, except it's entirely too big. Does anyone know what this is?
Morcerf presents a standard, type L (spherical) calcinating pattern, set on a white background.
Châtillon: Is this a joke?
Morcerf: Not at all.
Another slide. Now the same pattern is set with a world map as the background, including the surrounding oceanic areas and polar regions. The feedback knot is located inside Tokyo, Japan.
Morcerf: Tell me this isn't interesting.
Châtillon: Why did you make this?
Morcerf: To play connect-the-dots.
Another slide. The map is overlaid with a large number of dots spread loosely across the continents. Some, overlaying the pattern, are in red.
Morcerf: These are all D-type incursions for the last seven months. I asked Rochefort to filter for the ones with matching eigensignatures to the Tokyo incursion.
Another slide. Every dot except the red ones disappear.
Morcerf: And then he filtered out every other anomaly to minimise visual clutter. Currently there is one D-class incursion event every eight hours or so, down from one every six hours prior to the Tokyo incursion. I believe the matching eigensignatures are due to each incursion being caused by literally the same spell. There was a pause of one week after that event.
Rochefort: I concur.
Montclair: And no sign that Operation Armsbreaker had anything to do with it?
Morcerf: None. Our actions have been band-aids. The timing doesn't match.
Geneviève: Just what are you suggesting?
Morcerf: The Tokyo incursion was a major failure, damaging the core of the spell—which resulted in a significant decrease in global incursions—which is to say, we are facing an enemy capable of casting a singular, planet-scale spell which we don't understand but can recognise by its fingerprint; one which follows the general principles of alchemic calcination; and who is capable of repairing it after that level of damage. Our opponent is either a god, or someone backed by one. It suggests a reason for the recent failure of precognition.
Commotion; Montclair motions for silence but does not achieve it for some time.
Châtillon: That's- You're insane! This is all completely-
Morcerf: We have all heard seers claim the world will end. I propose it's time we take them seriously, and to that end I'm supporting Seiyo's request for funding. We should tie them closer to our council.
Morcerf lays out plans for recruiting additional members and reinforcing Seiyo Academy in case of another incursion as discussion proceeds, with Rochefort in particular joining her in contributing suggestions for personnel.
Geneviève: When will you tell us why you brought your granddaughter? I doubt it was merely to scare her with apocalyptic predictions.
Morcerf: Ah, of course. Charlotte?
Charlotte: Ma'am?
Morcerf: Transcribe the following at your convenience, and store it in the archives. I hereby declare Lulu de Morcerf Yamamoto to be the heir apparent of the Morcerf clan and its resources. This declaration is effective immediately, subject to revocation by myself or Lulu de Morcerf.
Lulu blushes and murmurs something indistinct but too quiet to overhear. The Matriarch hugs her briefly and then returns to her seat.
Montclair: Do you intend to retire?
Morcerf: No, but I do intend to hedge my bets. It will also help her to be taken seriously when she starts to sell these.
Morcerf tosses several jewels onto the table—all black onyx—with a distinctive pattern visible on the surface.
Rochefort: These are?
Morcerf: Lulu?
Morcerf: Your turn, dear.
Lulu: These are... um... a prototype, I guess? Anti-demon grenades.
Lulu fiddles with her bracelet before launching into an explanation of her work over the past two months with the help of diagrams prepared in advance of the meeting. The details are proprietary and omitted from this document.
Morcerf: I can speak to their effectiveness. These are approximately three times more powerful than our regular issue.
Lulu, nervously: Though I only succeed about half the time when I make them.
Minor commotion. The participants appear to be getting tired of Morcerf's escapades.
Montclair: Lulu de Morcerf here is, to be clear, psionic as well. She wasn't putting herself in danger. Is that correct?
Lulu nods vigorously; no further explanation offered or requested by the council.
Montclair: I assume you'll be marketing these eventually?
Morcerf: At a reasonable price, yes; I suspect Rochefort will want them badly for our agents on the frontlines.
Rochefort: In high quantities, yes. I would prefer establishing a sustainable manufacturing process—Seiyo could likely assist—but these could be the difference between life and death in some circumstances.
The discussion moves on.
⁂
Lulu walked downstairs from the meeting room feeling like she'd been hit by a truck. Not physically, but...
It wasn't that it hadn't gone well, per se. It had gone fantastically! Her grandma had been amazing—and shown her so many sides of herself that Lulu had never seen before in the process—and with Seiyo funded properly things would start going a lot better for Amu-chan, surely. No one would doubt Lulu now, not with concrete evidence backing her up, and they'd be able to research things properly without making bad assumptions all the time, and—and—and—
It had been overwhelming, okay?
"Fuwaaaaah," she sighed tiredly as she slumped into one of the heated couches downstairs, staring up at the icy ceiling above her. The doors were on the other side of the room and her grandma was still upstairs discussing things with everyone else, which left Lulu with a few minutes of silence and solitude.
The library was made literally of ice, and it was beautiful. Shelves upon shelves of books and scrolls covered every inch of the walls, while a shimmering carpet of pure ice lay at her feet. The ceiling was just as breathtaking: a canvas of fractals and patterns carved into the ice above her head. There was no sun to light the library, but there was a sourceless glow that emanated from the ice itself, casting soft shadows throughout the room.
A frozen pendulum swung lazily back and forth above her head; its swaying motions inching back and forth in a soothing rhythm that was almost hypnotic in nature. With each swing it broke entropy, compacted heat into coolness into a perfect ice cube which would never melt. The Glacier's creations were terrifying that way. It was beautiful though, and Lulu felt a momentary pang of guilt for thinking the word 'terrifying' as she watched it; and then she lost that thread of thought as exhaustion sank its claws into her head and turned her brain into mush instead.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Liliya asked quietly, gently putting a hand on Lulu's shoulder. "Is it over already?"
"Hi," Lulu mumbled sleepily as she looked at the girl in surprise, having forgotten about her entirely in the chaos upstairs. "It's still going." She paused and shivered slightly as she took in the sight before her for a second or two before she spoke again; "...didn't see you here."
Liliya shrugged slightly. "I was reading. And you know Rosa, she doesn't like libraries." Her voice sounded tired as well, like Lulu's was. "There's something I wanted to ask you before I forget about it." She hesitated for a moment as she spoke, looking nervous before continuing on. "D-do you remember when we met?"
Lulu nodded slightly at the question, squinting at Liliya with bleary eyes.
"Well, I..." Liliya hesitated again; cheeks tinted slightly red in embarrassment at whatever it was she was trying to say. "I..." She shook her head once or twice before speaking again; her voice still quiet and hesitant as she continued on: "I decided to say yes."
She pushed aside her arctic-blue bangs, revealing a small horn on the side of her head, poking out just above her right ear; a bone-white extrusion that looked almost like a crown. She didn't say anything else as she waited for Lulu's reaction—only watching her nervously.
Lulu stared at her blankly for several seconds before blinking rapidly as it finally clicked, eyes widening slightly in surprise as she sat up in her seat.
"You went for it?" she said. "I thought... you said you like wizardry more. That it wouldn't be worth the trouble." Lulu paused before shaking her head once again in confusion at the girl's sudden change of heart. "Not that I'm complaining," she added hurriedly, holding up both hands in a placating gesture, "-but really, why now?"
"Because," Liliya replied softly, blushing faintly as she looked away from Lulu and out into the room again instead. "I didn't want to feel like a coward anymore." She fell silent for several seconds, finally looking back at Lulu with an unreadable expression. "I don't want to be the one they're protecting. Wizardry is great, Lulu. But you can't use it in combat."
"Oh..." Lulu mumbled awkwardly, fidgeting slightly as she mulled over Liliya's words. "I guess... yeah." She frowned thoughtfully for a moment. You could, if you were experienced enough. Not at Lili's age. "Okay." She smiled faintly and held out her hand towards Liliya. "Welcome to the club then!"
"The- what?" Liliya replied in confusion. "What club?"
Lulu laughed softly. "The 'people who aren't going to die' club," she said cheerfully.
Interlude: Kana
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
The taxi ride to Shirogane's home was strangely mundane given everything that had happened over the course of the day, and that gave her a chance to think. To cry, if she were being honest. Shirogane barely spoke to her—Kana wasn't sure if she was angry, unsure, or just sensible—and that meant she could crawl into the corner of the seat and curl up without anyone pointing out that she was crying. That was nice of her, really. She didn't feel like talking. Shirogane's hand on her arm was a constant reminder that the woman certainly didn't trust her.
So she thought, as best she could when her thoughts still jittered from place to place, and cried occasionally when the emotions became too much to bear. And when the taxi stopped moving and Shirogane gave her arm a little tug she stumbled after her, finding herself led into a relatively normal house and left alone in a bathroom with the door shut behind her—a bottle of shampoo pressed into her hand by Shirogane before the woman left again without another word.
Kana looked around the bathroom for a few seconds in blank confusion, feeling like she was missing something important but not really knowing what it was that she was supposed to do—until she caught sight of herself in the mirror and flinched away from what she saw.
"That's me?" she mumbled quietly, hesitating for a few seconds before wrenching off her clothes.
She'd had-
She'd had quite a few third-degree burns, she supposed. All that was left of that was patches of pink, tender skin where Amu had healed her—the new skin a stark contrast against the rest of her body, which was tanned from spending so much time outside—but she barely recognised the girl staring back at her in the mirror. Her hair was burnt and tangled, matted in places and smelling of smoke; a slight breeze from the air-conditioner ruffled what remained of it as she stood there in confusion.
"Wash up," Shirogane said from outside the door, her voice muffled through the wood but still clearly audible. "You can take your time. I'll make dinner while you bathe."
She was covered in bruises and dried blood. Darkened, mostly. Amu had fixed everything that needed fixing, but hadn't gotten to cosmetics.
"Suits me," Kana mumbled, hugging herself and closing her eyes. Shirogane didn't reply, and Kana was glad of that; glad of the privacy.
She was ugly right now.
Didn't matter—what she thought or wanted—she didn't get to be pretty anyway, but...
'Wash up,' the woman had said, so Kana looked around for a bath or a shower—perhaps irrationally scared of disappointing the woman despite having just tried to murder her—and found both, because this was Shirogane Naoto and why wouldn't she have both in her house—and her shampoo smelled nice—so Kana washed up and started crying again halfway through because the warmth felt nice and everything felt wrong and she just wanted to curl up and die-
She'd said goodbye to Amu without breaking down.
That was good. It was what Amu needed from her; the kind of strong face that told Amu that, despite it all, Kana could hold herself together. That Amu didn't need to speak up, or do anything but go home and hug her mother and fall into her bed, all things that Amu had wanted very badly, and Kana might have wanted too if she'd had those.
She was so tired, and she'd walked downstairs right into a presence so strong that she'd nearly collapsed on the spot, a feel like a building falling on her as she desperately tried to scramble backwards and realised she couldn't move her legs. Amu had been perking up behind her but Kana couldn't hear her over the ringing in her ears and the terrible certainty that if she moved her head too far in any direction, she was going to die.
And that had been their backup.
An eight year old boy with enough presence that it might have broken Yui-chan if he'd come in looking for them.
Who'd also brought a limousine.
Amu could have helped. Amu had been serious, when she'd told Kana that she knew people who could help, and Kana had known that, because she'd literally been reading her mind at the time. But also: Kana had seen the terrible, terrible look of consternation on Amu's face when Amu realised that while Amu's secrets were 'being a not-a-magical-girl', Kana's were 'I've killed someone'. And Kana hadn't quite believed her anyway, so Naomi hadn't believed Kana at all.
So now she was alone.
Kana scrubbed at her skin until she felt like it was coming off, trying not to think as she did so. Her thoughts swirled endlessly around regardless of how desperately she fought to escape them. Only she'd given up that privilege, hadn't she? When she'd let herself be consumed by the fire within her head until it was too much to bear, and only the dark thoughts remained—and Kana had listened to those thoughts because it was easier than trying to stop them, and she'd hurt Amu because of that decision.
But there was also that not-so-little part of her. The part that was a little girl who just wanted someone to look after her and make her problems go away. Even if that meant being a burden, because there was no way she wasn't going to be a burden on anyone who spent too much time around her—but god she didn't want to be alone again. She couldn't pretend she did. Not anymore.
She sat for a while in the bathtub and struggled to think past her exhaustion; trying to come up with some course of action that didn't involve admitting that all she really wanted was to crawl into a hole and hide forever—because Amu had said: 'Let's stay friends'—and so Kana should be doing something about that now, something other than getting Shirogane's bathroom dirty.
There was a towel.
There were clothes too, once she summoned up the willpower to pull herself out of the bath, and she dressed herself after drying herself off because Shirogane wouldn't want her to drip all over the floor, and then she wandered outside of the bathroom looking for the detective. It didn't take her long to find the woman. Kana followed her trail—the nothingness—and Shirogane was sitting at a table with food on it when Kana found her.
"Feeling a little better?" Shirogane asked. Kana didn't reply immediately—too busy looking at her feet—and Shirogane repeated her question again after a few seconds. "Kana-san?"
"Yeah," Kana lied.
Shirogane stared at her for a moment and then sighed, pushing out a chair with one foot for Kana to sit in. Kana sat down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt, pretending not to notice the woman's scrutiny.
"You need food," Shirogane told her. "I'll ask Marie-chan to do your hair in the morning. Until then, please try to eat something." She paused before continuing on; her voice turning unexpectedly gentle. "I know today has been difficult for you."
Kana nodded numbly in response, barely registering the words.
Today had been difficult.
Was difficult.
Would be difficult again tomorrow?
"I thought of asking my boyfriend to come over, too, but that might be too many people for one day," Shirogane continued on, picking out some salad and a few pieces of chicken, along with a generous helping of rice. She slid the plate over to Kana. "So for now it's just the two of us. If you'd rather have another type of food—soup, maybe-"
"No!" Kana protested, accidentally cutting the woman off. "...no. You don't have to do anything for me," she continued on lamely after a second or two. "I'm... okay?"
Shirogane ignored the obvious lie in favour of adding some pork to the plate and pushing it closer to Kana again.
Kana's stomach growled.
She'd had a meal less than an hour ago, but after going several days without food? She was ravenous again already.
"You will be," Shirogane said. "Eat."
Kana hesitantly picked up the chopsticks and shovelled some rice into her mouth, sure that as soon as she swallowed it she'd throw up. But somehow it stayed down—the taste strangely bland and then flavourful all of a sudden as a switch flipped in her mind—and Kana's hunger got the better of her, devouring everything on the plate with a ferocity that surprised even her in its intensity.
She hardly even noticed when Shirogane pushed more rice onto her plate, until it was gone and Shirogane was handing her a cup of water as well. Kana took it hesitantly—wondering when Shirogane had gotten up in the first place—and drank from it in quick, desperate gulps.
Kana wanted more food but-
She suddenly felt a bit like she might burst if she ate any more than she already had, groaning slightly in discomfort as her body finally registered just how much food she'd shoved into it without thinking. Shirogane seemed to have noticed it as well, or she simply anticipated Kana's behaviour—either way she had an arm ready to help her up.
Kana couldn't help but stumble when she tried to push to her feet—even the motion of standing was an effort—and then she was in Shirogane's arms, being lifted up and carried towards the couch as though she were a child again. A couch that Shirogane had converted into a makeshift bed, complete with blankets and a pillow.
"Sleep," Shirogane murmured gently. "Everything else can wait until tomorrow."
Kana didn't argue.
She was already half asleep when her head hit the pillow.
= = =
"I wasn't exactly looking for a daughter," Naoto began slowly, watching the girl breathe softly as she slept.
Kana was comfortably tucked into the corner of the couch, a blanket hiding most of her face—almost childlike in sleep, an illusion shattered by the bruises visible all around the girl's neck. Shirogane had had to pack her inside two layers of blankets before she stopped shivering, though she wasn't sure if that was cold or simple exhaustion.
Could have been either. Could also be mentality. Naoto doubted if Kana felt safe here yet, or—anywhere.
"Want or not, Nao-chan," Marie said quietly, wrapping her arms around her and letting out a heavy sigh into Shirogane's shoulder. "A twelve-year-old is what we've got." She slouched into her, forcing Naoto to hold her upright, and chuckled quietly. There was little humour in the sound. "A fixer-upper to boot. The things you do to me."
"The things we do to ourselves," Shirogane corrected. They kept their voices low, so as to not disturb the girl. "Weren't you just saying you wanted children?"
"When you and Yu-kun are older," Marie replied, making a face at Naoto before glancing down at the girl sleeping on their couch. "Right now it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, 'specially if I don't get to have my own. But needs gotta, and she can't go anywhere else. Just how damaged is she, though?"
"I thought you said you could tell?" Shirogane asked in return.
"I can tell her soul is scorched and smoking," Marie replied quietly, all traces of humour fading from her expression, the tinge of snark and grouch disappearing. "Like a tower already fallen. She had her day, fought her fight, and it broke her. Now all that's left is ash, so the question you should ask is what will grow from there. It isn't a question I can answer. Yu-kun would be better suited to helping her than me, and Elizabeth or Margaret better than him, but Nao-chan... is she worth your time?"
"She is," Shirogane said without hesitation; not needing to consider it for even a moment, to make up her mind.
She'd already made it up on the ride home. Only a monster would look at someone Kana's age, then turn her away because she'd made mistakes that could have been avoided. Children were meant to make mistakes. Kana's were worse than most, but only because of the adults around her. She'd done better than anyone could ask of her—she'd have needed to be someone else to do better than she had. Naoto couldn't, wouldn't ask that of anyone.
"Even though you realise this is for life?" Marie pressed on, letting go to look her properly in the eyes. "She might never be alright. It'll take her months to trust you, if not years. And at the end of it all, what you'll have isn't some cute daughter. She's a young lady who has problems grown men struggle with, and no real faith in anyone at all. You won't get to abandon her in a month, or a year. If you want her soul to shine again..."
Marie blushed lightly at her choice of wording, but didn't correct herself.
"You'll be there forever."
"I will," Naoto said simply, reaching out to touch Kana's face, gently brushing some hair from it and smiling softly when Kana let out a grunt of protest at the movement.
"Of your own free will," Marie murmured, an odd reverb entering her voice. She sounded like two people speaking in perfect harmony. "Naoto," she continued on. "You've made up your mind, to take this responsibility?"
"I have," Shirogane replied.
"Then so be it," Marie said quietly.
= = =
Thanks go to the beta-readers. You know where you are, and so do the unicorn hordes.
So she thought, as best she could when her thoughts still jittered from place to place, and cried occasionally when the emotions became too much to bear. And when the taxi stopped moving and Shirogane gave her arm a little tug she stumbled after her, finding herself led into a relatively normal house and left alone in a bathroom with the door shut behind her—a bottle of shampoo pressed into her hand by Shirogane before the woman left again without another word.
Kana looked around the bathroom for a few seconds in blank confusion, feeling like she was missing something important but not really knowing what it was that she was supposed to do—until she caught sight of herself in the mirror and flinched away from what she saw.
"That's me?" she mumbled quietly, hesitating for a few seconds before wrenching off her clothes.
She'd had-
She'd had quite a few third-degree burns, she supposed. All that was left of that was patches of pink, tender skin where Amu had healed her—the new skin a stark contrast against the rest of her body, which was tanned from spending so much time outside—but she barely recognised the girl staring back at her in the mirror. Her hair was burnt and tangled, matted in places and smelling of smoke; a slight breeze from the air-conditioner ruffled what remained of it as she stood there in confusion.
"Wash up," Shirogane said from outside the door, her voice muffled through the wood but still clearly audible. "You can take your time. I'll make dinner while you bathe."
She was covered in bruises and dried blood. Darkened, mostly. Amu had fixed everything that needed fixing, but hadn't gotten to cosmetics.
"Suits me," Kana mumbled, hugging herself and closing her eyes. Shirogane didn't reply, and Kana was glad of that; glad of the privacy.
She was ugly right now.
Didn't matter—what she thought or wanted—she didn't get to be pretty anyway, but...
'Wash up,' the woman had said, so Kana looked around for a bath or a shower—perhaps irrationally scared of disappointing the woman despite having just tried to murder her—and found both, because this was Shirogane Naoto and why wouldn't she have both in her house—and her shampoo smelled nice—so Kana washed up and started crying again halfway through because the warmth felt nice and everything felt wrong and she just wanted to curl up and die-
She'd said goodbye to Amu without breaking down.
That was good. It was what Amu needed from her; the kind of strong face that told Amu that, despite it all, Kana could hold herself together. That Amu didn't need to speak up, or do anything but go home and hug her mother and fall into her bed, all things that Amu had wanted very badly, and Kana might have wanted too if she'd had those.
She was so tired, and she'd walked downstairs right into a presence so strong that she'd nearly collapsed on the spot, a feel like a building falling on her as she desperately tried to scramble backwards and realised she couldn't move her legs. Amu had been perking up behind her but Kana couldn't hear her over the ringing in her ears and the terrible certainty that if she moved her head too far in any direction, she was going to die.
And that had been their backup.
An eight year old boy with enough presence that it might have broken Yui-chan if he'd come in looking for them.
Who'd also brought a limousine.
Amu could have helped. Amu had been serious, when she'd told Kana that she knew people who could help, and Kana had known that, because she'd literally been reading her mind at the time. But also: Kana had seen the terrible, terrible look of consternation on Amu's face when Amu realised that while Amu's secrets were 'being a not-a-magical-girl', Kana's were 'I've killed someone'. And Kana hadn't quite believed her anyway, so Naomi hadn't believed Kana at all.
So now she was alone.
Kana scrubbed at her skin until she felt like it was coming off, trying not to think as she did so. Her thoughts swirled endlessly around regardless of how desperately she fought to escape them. Only she'd given up that privilege, hadn't she? When she'd let herself be consumed by the fire within her head until it was too much to bear, and only the dark thoughts remained—and Kana had listened to those thoughts because it was easier than trying to stop them, and she'd hurt Amu because of that decision.
But there was also that not-so-little part of her. The part that was a little girl who just wanted someone to look after her and make her problems go away. Even if that meant being a burden, because there was no way she wasn't going to be a burden on anyone who spent too much time around her—but god she didn't want to be alone again. She couldn't pretend she did. Not anymore.
She sat for a while in the bathtub and struggled to think past her exhaustion; trying to come up with some course of action that didn't involve admitting that all she really wanted was to crawl into a hole and hide forever—because Amu had said: 'Let's stay friends'—and so Kana should be doing something about that now, something other than getting Shirogane's bathroom dirty.
There was a towel.
There were clothes too, once she summoned up the willpower to pull herself out of the bath, and she dressed herself after drying herself off because Shirogane wouldn't want her to drip all over the floor, and then she wandered outside of the bathroom looking for the detective. It didn't take her long to find the woman. Kana followed her trail—the nothingness—and Shirogane was sitting at a table with food on it when Kana found her.
"Feeling a little better?" Shirogane asked. Kana didn't reply immediately—too busy looking at her feet—and Shirogane repeated her question again after a few seconds. "Kana-san?"
"Yeah," Kana lied.
Shirogane stared at her for a moment and then sighed, pushing out a chair with one foot for Kana to sit in. Kana sat down and fiddled with the hem of her shirt, pretending not to notice the woman's scrutiny.
"You need food," Shirogane told her. "I'll ask Marie-chan to do your hair in the morning. Until then, please try to eat something." She paused before continuing on; her voice turning unexpectedly gentle. "I know today has been difficult for you."
Kana nodded numbly in response, barely registering the words.
Today had been difficult.
Was difficult.
Would be difficult again tomorrow?
"I thought of asking my boyfriend to come over, too, but that might be too many people for one day," Shirogane continued on, picking out some salad and a few pieces of chicken, along with a generous helping of rice. She slid the plate over to Kana. "So for now it's just the two of us. If you'd rather have another type of food—soup, maybe-"
"No!" Kana protested, accidentally cutting the woman off. "...no. You don't have to do anything for me," she continued on lamely after a second or two. "I'm... okay?"
Shirogane ignored the obvious lie in favour of adding some pork to the plate and pushing it closer to Kana again.
Kana's stomach growled.
She'd had a meal less than an hour ago, but after going several days without food? She was ravenous again already.
"You will be," Shirogane said. "Eat."
Kana hesitantly picked up the chopsticks and shovelled some rice into her mouth, sure that as soon as she swallowed it she'd throw up. But somehow it stayed down—the taste strangely bland and then flavourful all of a sudden as a switch flipped in her mind—and Kana's hunger got the better of her, devouring everything on the plate with a ferocity that surprised even her in its intensity.
She hardly even noticed when Shirogane pushed more rice onto her plate, until it was gone and Shirogane was handing her a cup of water as well. Kana took it hesitantly—wondering when Shirogane had gotten up in the first place—and drank from it in quick, desperate gulps.
Kana wanted more food but-
She suddenly felt a bit like she might burst if she ate any more than she already had, groaning slightly in discomfort as her body finally registered just how much food she'd shoved into it without thinking. Shirogane seemed to have noticed it as well, or she simply anticipated Kana's behaviour—either way she had an arm ready to help her up.
Kana couldn't help but stumble when she tried to push to her feet—even the motion of standing was an effort—and then she was in Shirogane's arms, being lifted up and carried towards the couch as though she were a child again. A couch that Shirogane had converted into a makeshift bed, complete with blankets and a pillow.
"Sleep," Shirogane murmured gently. "Everything else can wait until tomorrow."
Kana didn't argue.
She was already half asleep when her head hit the pillow.
= = =
"I wasn't exactly looking for a daughter," Naoto began slowly, watching the girl breathe softly as she slept.
Kana was comfortably tucked into the corner of the couch, a blanket hiding most of her face—almost childlike in sleep, an illusion shattered by the bruises visible all around the girl's neck. Shirogane had had to pack her inside two layers of blankets before she stopped shivering, though she wasn't sure if that was cold or simple exhaustion.
Could have been either. Could also be mentality. Naoto doubted if Kana felt safe here yet, or—anywhere.
"Want or not, Nao-chan," Marie said quietly, wrapping her arms around her and letting out a heavy sigh into Shirogane's shoulder. "A twelve-year-old is what we've got." She slouched into her, forcing Naoto to hold her upright, and chuckled quietly. There was little humour in the sound. "A fixer-upper to boot. The things you do to me."
"The things we do to ourselves," Shirogane corrected. They kept their voices low, so as to not disturb the girl. "Weren't you just saying you wanted children?"
"When you and Yu-kun are older," Marie replied, making a face at Naoto before glancing down at the girl sleeping on their couch. "Right now it sounds like more trouble than it's worth, 'specially if I don't get to have my own. But needs gotta, and she can't go anywhere else. Just how damaged is she, though?"
"I thought you said you could tell?" Shirogane asked in return.
"I can tell her soul is scorched and smoking," Marie replied quietly, all traces of humour fading from her expression, the tinge of snark and grouch disappearing. "Like a tower already fallen. She had her day, fought her fight, and it broke her. Now all that's left is ash, so the question you should ask is what will grow from there. It isn't a question I can answer. Yu-kun would be better suited to helping her than me, and Elizabeth or Margaret better than him, but Nao-chan... is she worth your time?"
"She is," Shirogane said without hesitation; not needing to consider it for even a moment, to make up her mind.
She'd already made it up on the ride home. Only a monster would look at someone Kana's age, then turn her away because she'd made mistakes that could have been avoided. Children were meant to make mistakes. Kana's were worse than most, but only because of the adults around her. She'd done better than anyone could ask of her—she'd have needed to be someone else to do better than she had. Naoto couldn't, wouldn't ask that of anyone.
"Even though you realise this is for life?" Marie pressed on, letting go to look her properly in the eyes. "She might never be alright. It'll take her months to trust you, if not years. And at the end of it all, what you'll have isn't some cute daughter. She's a young lady who has problems grown men struggle with, and no real faith in anyone at all. You won't get to abandon her in a month, or a year. If you want her soul to shine again..."
Marie blushed lightly at her choice of wording, but didn't correct herself.
"You'll be there forever."
"I will," Naoto said simply, reaching out to touch Kana's face, gently brushing some hair from it and smiling softly when Kana let out a grunt of protest at the movement.
"Of your own free will," Marie murmured, an odd reverb entering her voice. She sounded like two people speaking in perfect harmony. "Naoto," she continued on. "You've made up your mind, to take this responsibility?"
"I have," Shirogane replied.
"Then so be it," Marie said quietly.
= = =
Thanks go to the beta-readers. You know where you are, and so do the unicorn hordes.
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Interlude: Misaki
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Random Rubble-Strewn Hole, Seiyo Academy, evening of Oct. 21, 2009.
"Ouch... I fell." Misaki's voice momentarily echoed in the tunnels, but then she clapped a hand over her mouth to stop any more noises from escaping—trembling slightly as she curled into a ball and waited for the pain to fade away.
Owwie.
The pile of rubble she was lying on trembled and sagged underneath her. A chunk of concrete made a clattering noise as it fell down to the floor. It landed somewhere below her—Misaki flinched in response to the noise and shrank into a tighter ball—and she let out a quiet sigh of relief as the rubble continued to settle without collapsing down on her.
Her knee ached and pulsed from where she'd scraped it against something sharp. She hoped there wouldn't be blood running down her leg when she took off her trousers to check—and resolved not to check at all. If she'd hurt herself, then she'd have to go home.
Anyway.
Distant laughter cut off abruptly, replaced by someone whispering in hushed tones for a few seconds; and then a flashlight lit up the rubble underneath the hole Misaki had tried to climb up through, the bright light startling her enough that she almost jumped into the air—and she shrank back into herself even further in response.
She'd been having an adventure.
There were tunnels underneath Seiyo. Tunnels! Lots of them, some covered in ceramic walls but a lot of those were cracked and broken, and behind them the walls were made of metal and really really shiny. There were barely any lights, but there was lots and lots of sunlight flooding into the tunnels from holes everywhere—all reflecting off the metal—which had made it easy for Misaki to find an entrance.
It was halls and rooms, sometimes normal school things; mostly empty but sometimes there was broken glass everywhere, or bits of papers scattered on the floor; or lots of toys! One room was full of stuffed animals, like there'd been a game in there and someone had forgotten to take them home...
Then she'd tried to climb out and now she was stuck, because the rubble wasn't solid and it'd broke underneath her when she climbed. And someone had heard her shout! Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range—she hesitated—fifteen metres. Best she could do. Object: None.
Two.
Object: ...follow JPs orders?
Two.
And the light was all in her eyes! And that made it really hard to tell if the "JPs" guards were climbing down towards her. They hadn't seen her, had they? Had they? What Would Ami Do? ...not get stuck this way? Count them, then. Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Ten metres. Object: Intent to climb down.
Zero.
One.
Eh!?
Misaki stiffened, letting out a muffled whimper as footsteps crunched on the rubble above her and the light flickered slightly in response—the conversation between the two guards (JPs guards? Were they guards?) continuing on without pause as they examined the hole. Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Ten metres. Object: Number of children noticed, on average? No no no! She wasn't noticed!
One.
Misaki paused for a moment as the adrenaline rushed through her veins, making her want to bounce around and move—but she didn't! She stayed perfectly still.
"Hey... kid?" The guard asked uncertainly, finding an angle to shine the torch at her—Misaki squeaked in response. The man didn't seem to know how to react to that, and just stared at her for a moment or so. He cleared his throat before continuing on. "Are you stuck? You can't play here. It's dangerous."
She wasn't stuck! She was adventuring!
And she was a very important adventurer and would very much appreciate being left alone right now! Misaki scowled and stuck her tongue out at the guard, before hastily ducking underneath the piece of concrete sticking out above her. There was no way further down past that. But it did keep him from seeing her.
"Kid? Please come out. I'm serious, it's dangerous." The guard spoke uncertainly again, his flashlight not able to light up Misaki anymore—that didn't mean she was safe! Not at all! He might reach through the hole and grab her! If he had noodle arms, like that anime boy.
He did not have noodle arms, though he kept staring for another few seconds before calling out for backup.
"John?" The guard said. "Can you talk to the boy? I can't fit through that gap."
"Gotcha," the second guard replied—he sounded closer than before. How many people had come in response to her falling!? They didn't need to make such a big deal out of it! And-
"I'm not a boy!" Misaki yelled at the men. "I'm an adventuress!"
There was a moment of silence, followed by a chuckle from the guards.
"That means I'm a girl!" she told them, poking her head out so she could scowl at them properly. "Not a boy! Boys are icky. And/or boring! They don't have any adventuring ability! And- oww. Gah. Ouch. Dangnabbit!"
Her knee had brushed against the rubble while she was squirming, and Misaki had stopped moving as soon as that happened. Which left her knee stuck like that. Her leg throbbed in pain, and Misaki whined quietly—but that hurt more! Stupid throbbing!
"You alright k- miss?" The first guard asked, giving her a lopsided smile and trying not to laugh. "Need a hand?"
Misaki looked up at them, tears pooling in her eyes, and nodded. "Please?"
⁂
She was lectured for what felt like hours, until she wanted to cry. It didn't help that her knee still hurt and she was bleeding and they had to put plasters on it. She could, apparently, have died. Her principal had, apparently, sent them to help her. So she wouldn't.
Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Three metres. Object: Dishonesty?
Zero.
Misaki had herself a good cry, until even the guards looked awkward and one of them gave her a chocolate. She wasn't allowed back in the tunnels, or even in Seiyo, and they were going to call her parents. Which meant Makoto would know she'd been sneaking off somewhere, which meant Makoto would yell at her! And then Mako-chan would tell Haruto-nii-chan and Sora-nii-san and then they'd be mad too!
It was very unfair.
Misaki only wanted to have a little adventure!
'John' was a black person, though. Totally black. And the other guard, 'Peter'—who was white—was bald. He looked like you could play ping-pong on on his head! That was amazing! Misaki tried not to stare at him too much. It'd be rude! But it was hard not to! Because Peter's skin was just... white-white? Misaki hadn't ever seen anybody who looked like that before! He had no tan at all! It was... so weird!
Anyway. They'd been nice enough after John gave her the chocolate, even if Peter's lecture had lasted a long time. And they'd promised not to say she'd gotten stuck in the rubble, if she promised to never ever do that again. Ever. Which was mean but probably fair?
So Misaki nodded meekly and gave them both hugs—to their surprise—and then a few minutes later her mother arrived.
She'd definitely had an adventure.
She couldn't wait to tell Ami tomorrow. Her friend would be so very jealous.
= = =
Please send my betas fuel, armor and bullets. Hurry.
"Ouch... I fell." Misaki's voice momentarily echoed in the tunnels, but then she clapped a hand over her mouth to stop any more noises from escaping—trembling slightly as she curled into a ball and waited for the pain to fade away.
Owwie.
The pile of rubble she was lying on trembled and sagged underneath her. A chunk of concrete made a clattering noise as it fell down to the floor. It landed somewhere below her—Misaki flinched in response to the noise and shrank into a tighter ball—and she let out a quiet sigh of relief as the rubble continued to settle without collapsing down on her.
Her knee ached and pulsed from where she'd scraped it against something sharp. She hoped there wouldn't be blood running down her leg when she took off her trousers to check—and resolved not to check at all. If she'd hurt herself, then she'd have to go home.
Anyway.
Distant laughter cut off abruptly, replaced by someone whispering in hushed tones for a few seconds; and then a flashlight lit up the rubble underneath the hole Misaki had tried to climb up through, the bright light startling her enough that she almost jumped into the air—and she shrank back into herself even further in response.
She'd been having an adventure.
There were tunnels underneath Seiyo. Tunnels! Lots of them, some covered in ceramic walls but a lot of those were cracked and broken, and behind them the walls were made of metal and really really shiny. There were barely any lights, but there was lots and lots of sunlight flooding into the tunnels from holes everywhere—all reflecting off the metal—which had made it easy for Misaki to find an entrance.
It was halls and rooms, sometimes normal school things; mostly empty but sometimes there was broken glass everywhere, or bits of papers scattered on the floor; or lots of toys! One room was full of stuffed animals, like there'd been a game in there and someone had forgotten to take them home...
Then she'd tried to climb out and now she was stuck, because the rubble wasn't solid and it'd broke underneath her when she climbed. And someone had heard her shout! Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range—she hesitated—fifteen metres. Best she could do. Object: None.
Two.
Object: ...follow JPs orders?
Two.
And the light was all in her eyes! And that made it really hard to tell if the "JPs" guards were climbing down towards her. They hadn't seen her, had they? Had they? What Would Ami Do? ...not get stuck this way? Count them, then. Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Ten metres. Object: Intent to climb down.
Zero.
One.
Eh!?
Misaki stiffened, letting out a muffled whimper as footsteps crunched on the rubble above her and the light flickered slightly in response—the conversation between the two guards (JPs guards? Were they guards?) continuing on without pause as they examined the hole. Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Ten metres. Object: Number of children noticed, on average? No no no! She wasn't noticed!
One.
Misaki paused for a moment as the adrenaline rushed through her veins, making her want to bounce around and move—but she didn't! She stayed perfectly still.
"Hey... kid?" The guard asked uncertainly, finding an angle to shine the torch at her—Misaki squeaked in response. The man didn't seem to know how to react to that, and just stared at her for a moment or so. He cleared his throat before continuing on. "Are you stuck? You can't play here. It's dangerous."
She wasn't stuck! She was adventuring!
And she was a very important adventurer and would very much appreciate being left alone right now! Misaki scowled and stuck her tongue out at the guard, before hastily ducking underneath the piece of concrete sticking out above her. There was no way further down past that. But it did keep him from seeing her.
"Kid? Please come out. I'm serious, it's dangerous." The guard spoke uncertainly again, his flashlight not able to light up Misaki anymore—that didn't mean she was safe! Not at all! He might reach through the hole and grab her! If he had noodle arms, like that anime boy.
He did not have noodle arms, though he kept staring for another few seconds before calling out for backup.
"John?" The guard said. "Can you talk to the boy? I can't fit through that gap."
"Gotcha," the second guard replied—he sounded closer than before. How many people had come in response to her falling!? They didn't need to make such a big deal out of it! And-
"I'm not a boy!" Misaki yelled at the men. "I'm an adventuress!"
There was a moment of silence, followed by a chuckle from the guards.
"That means I'm a girl!" she told them, poking her head out so she could scowl at them properly. "Not a boy! Boys are icky. And/or boring! They don't have any adventuring ability! And- oww. Gah. Ouch. Dangnabbit!"
Her knee had brushed against the rubble while she was squirming, and Misaki had stopped moving as soon as that happened. Which left her knee stuck like that. Her leg throbbed in pain, and Misaki whined quietly—but that hurt more! Stupid throbbing!
"You alright k- miss?" The first guard asked, giving her a lopsided smile and trying not to laugh. "Need a hand?"
Misaki looked up at them, tears pooling in her eyes, and nodded. "Please?"
⁂
She was lectured for what felt like hours, until she wanted to cry. It didn't help that her knee still hurt and she was bleeding and they had to put plasters on it. She could, apparently, have died. Her principal had, apparently, sent them to help her. So she wouldn't.
Subject: Animal, thinking, human. Range: Three metres. Object: Dishonesty?
Zero.
Misaki had herself a good cry, until even the guards looked awkward and one of them gave her a chocolate. She wasn't allowed back in the tunnels, or even in Seiyo, and they were going to call her parents. Which meant Makoto would know she'd been sneaking off somewhere, which meant Makoto would yell at her! And then Mako-chan would tell Haruto-nii-chan and Sora-nii-san and then they'd be mad too!
It was very unfair.
Misaki only wanted to have a little adventure!
'John' was a black person, though. Totally black. And the other guard, 'Peter'—who was white—was bald. He looked like you could play ping-pong on on his head! That was amazing! Misaki tried not to stare at him too much. It'd be rude! But it was hard not to! Because Peter's skin was just... white-white? Misaki hadn't ever seen anybody who looked like that before! He had no tan at all! It was... so weird!
Anyway. They'd been nice enough after John gave her the chocolate, even if Peter's lecture had lasted a long time. And they'd promised not to say she'd gotten stuck in the rubble, if she promised to never ever do that again. Ever. Which was mean but probably fair?
So Misaki nodded meekly and gave them both hugs—to their surprise—and then a few minutes later her mother arrived.
She'd definitely had an adventure.
She couldn't wait to tell Ami tomorrow. Her friend would be so very jealous.
= = =
Please send my betas fuel, armor and bullets. Hurry.
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